I had a talk with Gimpilator once about this, it seems as though Panorama's are not as appreciated as normal photos.

I posted a photo and panorama as an experiment. Here is the Vertical Photo:
http://www.summitpost.org/alpenglow-on- ... mit/745961


And here is the panorama:
http://www.summitpost.org/alpenglow-on- ... gan/737345


And I know it's not a matter of hits, because the panorama that is a much lower score has way more views than the other which speaks out to me that the non panorama is more appreciated. So as a result I been less motivated to post panorama's if they are "unpopular". Or perhaps the real reason is that most people look at the medium sized picture which a panorama "doesn't show much detail" while the vertical photo shows a lot in the medium sized view. And on top of it, panorama's take up way more space on summitpost than a normal photo. So should I keep posting panoramas?

It could be Josh that there are still different camera settings within the "panorama" format? Some panoramas are very nice, like yours above. Oh this hurts......Chad does a very nice job with his panorama shots. Some of the others I've seen are pretty poor. I think too many of us have seen the poor shots and don't even take a look when there is a pano shot posted.

I personally don't like panoramas as much as the square or rectangular photo.
No logical reason, really-just my preference.
That being said, I will usually vote on whatever photo I really like, be it a panorama or no.

I often click on photos just to see what they are of / gauge the purpose of posting, particularly if they're thumb sized. Here with the top photo I think, "what is that?" Is it a route outline, is it some particularly interesting rock? The panorama is easier to discern without clicking. You should also consider the aesthetic element - a cropped picture can simply be nicer to look at than a panorama. If you think a photo adds to the existing range of images on something, add it regardless of mass appeal because it will be useful to someone. I'd be surprised if anyone came down on you over storage space, there are plenty of others who would be first in the firing line.

Josh why not just ask for our votes for your pano?

Marmaduke wrote:Josh why not just ask for our votes for your pano?

Not a bad idea. (just kidding) Anyways, I was trying to make a point, the reason for linking to them in the first place was so people could view the originals and such to get a perspective of what I'm talking about. It seems like vertical photos are the new popular thing these days, the current Photo of the Day is making me consider this tactic.

some landscapes lend themselves to panorams better than others. The Picket Range and the view from the summit of Forbidden Peak, for example, make for more interesting panorams than a solitary mountain like a stratovolcano.

I think Josh is right, the panos get fewer hits (and scores), for lots of reasons including those above.

Another reason is the SP interface, which doesn't display panos very well -- unless you're using Gangolf's codes to display a pano in a TR or mountain page, in which case there's no incentive to click through for a better view.

I also think it's rare that a real pano ends up being a good composition. The eye has to work too hard to take it all in. I find that you only get decent results when stitching 2-3 images together.

As a test of that that last proposition, Josh: try cropping off the right third or so off your pano, at about the lowest point of the ridge. You might also clip off the shadowed peak on the left, so that the image starts with the nicely-lit snowfield up high, and emphasizes the contrast with the shadowed snow below.

Then post, and see what the collective says.

An experienced photographer told me there were a few rules to composition, including the rule of thirds and trying to format the elments in the photo in a 'Z' configuration. Perhaps it is harder to apply these rules to a big panorama? What I don't know about photography could fill volumes, so I am just throwing out guesses, but to my eye most panos just dont' look well composed.

Arthur Digbee wrote:As a test of that that last proposition, Josh: try cropping off the right third or so off your pano, at about the lowest point of the ridge. You might also clip off the shadowed peak on the left, so that the image starts with the nicely-lit snowfield up high, and emphasizes the contrast with the shadowed snow below.

Then post, and see what the collective says.

Thanks for the advice, I'll have to keep it in mind for the future. Now there is a flaw in doing what you mentioned, the peak to the left is the real summit even though the photo seems to show other wise. Should I crop out the real summit? Ok there is a small piece that could be cropped on the left, but even though I like making my photos as nice looking as possible, I always like having the viewer as least confused about the place as possible. This panorama was used on my Mount Logan page.

As for Gangolf's code, I been using it all along on the panorama which leads me to believe that's not the reason. Although now I have a slightly cleaner version of his code as seen here:

Code: Select all

<center><div style="height:583px;width:540px;overflow:scroll;">
<img src="http://images.summitpost.org/original/737345.jpg" border="0"  height="550" <br/></div></center>

Josh, I think you are overreacting here, and I do not agree with the hypothesis or some of the conclusions.

Of course these are mostly opinions, but there are several things that help support this...

1. You have featured these photos differently on different pages. That can skew your experiment.

2. Your dataset is too small. One experiment on one pair of submissions isn't enough to make a fair conclusion.

3. The number of people who vote is very small... only 13 votes on the photo you claim to be popular. Note that the panorama got far more hits. There is a good argument to be made that despite it having fewer votes that it is far more popular. Why else would so many people click on it? I certainly do not see crappy photos getting that many hits on a routine basis.

4. IMHO that panorama is better than your vertical image.

5. It is true that vertical photos look better on the image page, but for POTD (which you brought up earlier) the most important things that matter (ceteris paribus) are 1. how does the image look in a square thumbnail and 2. how is the image presented on a new page submission if there is one. (of course this is excepting things like who submitted it, the time of day, what other submissions occurred that day, etc...) These considerations are independent of an image’s aspect ratio, and the first one is the overriding factor.

6. I have had a few panoramas make POTD, and IMHO featuring 1 or 2 on most of my pages is something that I think makes the pages much more presentable (and in the case of the labeled ones more informative too). Those panorama POTDs beat out some fairly decent photos with other aspect ratios.

7. I have observed that a panorama that makes POTD will often get fewer votes that other POTD items, and you never see one get POTW. This supports your POV, and I think is caused by how they are presented in the small size image on the home page (the vertical images get much more surface area). Still, I would not let this effect lead you all the way to the conclusion that panoramas are not appreciated. They are.


Bottom line… do not get too up in arms over how many votes a photo gets. And everything else is secondary to that point.

ExcitableBoy wrote:An experienced photographer told me there were a few rules to composition, including the rule of thirds and trying to format the elements in the photo in a 'Z' configuration.

I think these things are more basic guidelines to consider and work in certain scenarios rather than others, especially when you're struggling to find a good way to make something of interest look good in / as a photo. The highest rated images on SP for example don't appear to use these tactics much as the photographers / voters have gone for relatively small features being framed within the context of much larger landscapes. Obviously the highest rated images on here don't mean they're the 'best' and whatnot, I just use it for illustration.

Here's some of my favorites from my submissions, some because of how they look, and others because of the area and the information in them... let's see if I can get this page loading slow on everyone's laptops eh?

(admittedly, they look better on a mountain page or as a full size stand-alone image than how I have listed them here)

Baarb wrote:The highest rated images on SP for example don't appear to use these tactics much as the photographers / voters have gone for relatively small features being framed within the context of much larger landscapes.

The highest rated photos are the ones that are purple or orange scenery, or spectacular snow/ice climbing action shots.

For a great example of well executed, purposefull panoramas, check out Steph Abegg's work http://c0278592.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspac ... 642897.jpg