As features go, Panorama isn’t the most difficult in theory, but in practice it does take some getting used to. During the keynote, Apple boasted that the huge 23MP images would come out virtually flawless thanks to some incredibly clever processing, and a real-time digital “stitching together” of frames. And – to be fair – I’ve had one good result so far (out of 3). Here’s how to do it:
1. Open the camera app, and select “Options” at the top of your screen.
2. Select “Panorama”
3. Now’s when it gets a tiny bit tricky. You’ll see on your screen there’s now a long tab/window on your screen with an arrow pointing along a horizontal line. Hit the usual camera button at the bottom and your phone will instruct you to pan to the right. If you do it too fast, you’ll get shouted at. “SLOW DOWN” will appear on screen.
4. Speed isn’t the only thing to get right either. The second is even trickier: keeping the arrow dead center on screen. If you tilt the phone even slightly, it goes off course and you get an imperfect image at the end. It feels like a cross between walking along a straight line when you’re intoxicated and playing “The Buzzer Game” at a fete (when you’re drunk).
5. To finish your panorama early, click “DONE” at the bottom on iPhone 5 (on iPhone 4S press the blue camera icon). Otherwise, continue until the entire middle in-picture window is full. And you end up with something like this:
