During the dark age of film photography, getting a panoramic picture meant getting a dedicated camera that could pan the lens at a 180 degree angle or more. In the 90s, there was the Widelux which did this splendidly and after that, it was the Hasselblad Xpan which I grew to love but could never afford. These cameras would use two 35mm frames to capture a scene, allowing for a wide angle picture which was very rare to find. For one, there was no way you could hand hold this steady enough and you needed a tripod to help you do the job. Picking a scene and how you exposed it was a matter of science, as the aperture was normally fixed (except in the case of the Xpan). 

After that, I never bothered to look into this genre of photography ever again until the late 2000s when I was asked by Sony to manage a project where one of the photographers, Paul Daly, was a professional panoramic photographer. Nomadic planet were asked to produce a series of pictures for Sony Asia Pacific using Sony DSLRs. 

To begin with, shooting a pano might seem easy but he had to do a lot of work to do with those DSLRs. First you needed a tripod, and because it was in portrait orientation you had to make several overlapping shots to ensure the computer program you used to stitch the picture was done correctly, and yes, you actually had to buy panoramic stitching software in order for this to work. 

Next was the lens, a 50mm for full frame would be just nice but Paul said he preferred 70mm or more depending on the subject he shot. Paul took beautiful panos, and each would take up to 20 mins to set up and shoot. That is how much work that went into the pano during the early days of the DSLR. 

I remember during my days with Sony Asia Pacific, they asked my opinion what would be the next big feature. I told them it would things like Panoramic photography as well as HDR. They shrugged, and I never brought it up again. This was in 2008/2009. Deep down inside I knew the technology would be able to make the whole process so much easier and it was in 2010 that everything became a reality. 

Pano Photography as an afterthought

In the days before this pano feature was introduced in DSLRs, panoramic photographers were professionals with a skill that only connoisseurs appreciated. Today, no one would give two hoots about them. If you wanted to try your hand at it using a film camera, you can't go wrong with a Horizon. 

Technology has made them redundant, and the business has been democratised. Anyone with a smartphone today has the ability to shoot a pano image without dropping any sweat. All it takes is a steady pose, holding your smartphone the right way and deciding on how the subject should flow in your picture. How technology had changed the landscape was exciting, and demeaning to professionals who had spent a good part of their life developing a skill for it. You can virtually capture a pano in less than 1 min...using a compact camera or your iPhone. If you compared that with the Panos of old, where you had to literally spin a DSLR on a specially built tripod, well, that's 23 minutes shorter and probably saved you a whole lot of time on a PC trying to stitch them together too. 

And if you had a business card that says you're a panoramic photographer, all you will earn is a shrug from the very people you wish to impress. 

Composing the Pano is not Rocket Science

One of the challenges of shooting panos the old way was to get the Horizon on a level. If you were shooting from a hill or a slope, you had to make sure you had a spirit level on your tripod to find out if you are on level ground. So if you are not, you had to make the collapse the tripod legs to have the correct fit. 

This was made redundant with the 3 axis camera stabilisation, which detected minute movements and adjusted it during capture. 

Rule of Thirds, redux. The Entrance occupies two thirds of the frame while the hotel building takes a third of the frame

So these days, the camera detects your panning movement as long as you hold it still, you can capture a panoramic image without the use off a tripod. All you have to do is hold your Android or iPhone steady, pointed at the direction you want it to flow and move along the horizon line. That's it!

And as long as you have compose the image using the rule of thirds, then you're ok. The rule of thirds here means composing your subjects using a grid of thirds, and it is not the conventional rule of thirds where the subject in focus should be within the middle four points.

Dividing your picture by thirds and then putting your main and secondary subjects within these one third frames helps to give it breath and space. If not, it would be a mess. 

How Technology is making even Easier

I remember shooting my first mobile panoramic picture using an iPhone 3GS. The quality of the image wasn't great but it got the job done. Today, with the higher spec iPhones and Android devices, where the whole processing and stitching of the image is done within the device, there is no longer a need to shoot with a DSLR. 

Even DSLR's these days support a panoramic panning function that you can opt to use without a tripod. That said, no idiot who knows how to use a camera could ever get this wrong. 

Since the launch of Ricoh's Theta camera, it brought back memories of my time with an IPIX camera in the 1990s. It functions the same way since it captures spherical images which needs to be stitched together with a desktop software. For Ricoh's Theta, you only need an iPhone app if you don't have a computer at your disposal.

Judging from the quality of the images, the first thing that came to mind is that Google could open this up to people with such a camera to capture extended Street View photos.

Google Business Photographer

This sounds really spiffy. Google Business Photographer. Wow. You must earn as much money as the stock has in recent years. That would be cool if you could make a load of cash by joining them.

Right now, the program is only available in the US, Australia, NZ and UK, and in time will be extended to other parts of the world. To sign up to be a trusted photographer, Google has some requirements which you must meet.

Equipment List
Google has strict criteria for this, and you need to have a camera with a 8mm fish eye with a 180 degree field of view. You can use most commercially available DSLRs with either APS-C or Full Frame sensor. So forget that puny smartphone camera you been raving about. It won't do.

Exposure Stacking Technique
To capture successful photos, you need to overlap each picture to make a seamless bubble, meaning you have to capture four scene from a single shooting vantage. Each of these must be bracketed, so you have a total of 12 frames with varying exposure. With three frames, you stack the exposure to create the best dynamic range for each scene therefore negating the HDR effect. You get a blended image. Exposure stacking allows you to shoot at a low ISO so that noise would not be a problem. Lower ISO also gives much better dynamic range which is what Google is looking for. To know more about exposure stacking, click this link. Since this will be shot with a tripod, there is no need to worry about shutter speed or aperture. You can preset your aperture to a f/11 value to get the best image for any indoor location.

Must have a Viable Photography Business

Yep, you have to be pro in some ways, with a dedicated photography set up, website and license to operate a business. This is to avoid any eventual flare ups between the business owner. There is even a clause that says this:-

Photographer will refund all Service Fees to the Business (but will have no further liability with respect to the agreement) if Google rejects the photographs for failure to meet the Google Business Photos technical specifications and Photographer does not correct the failure after re-photographing the Business at a mutually-agreed upon time.

How Street View is Extended Indoors

The whole idea is that upon walking on the road, or driving, you might want to take a peek at what's in store. It could be that you're running some chop shop or whore house that looks perfectly decent from the outside but it rocks on the inside! I'm just kidding. But if whoring is legal in your country, I am sure Google will allow indoor photos of your establishment on Google maps.

To get an idea of what sort of photos can be achieved through the humble use of a camera on a tripod, just click the link here.

Published Rates for Photographic Services

You get a rough ballpark cost for doing something like this and I have put two such services here. It's not much really. In fact, Google doesn't pay you a cent for taking the photos, the businesses that want their pictures taken do.

You can of course charge a fee for this that is beyond the structured fees charged by these individuals as it does not include transport, lodging or any other operation cost. Personally, I have problems with such a cost structure as it is not something you can a 'stable' business. I have often argued that photographers are paid far less today than they were during the analogue era for one simple thing. Film was a consumable cost and can be charged back to the client, whereas computer time, spent in post production of images cannot. In its day, you paid a photographer to take a fixed number of pictures which came out of a color lab. Today, you need to BUY computers to enhance your images before delivering them to your client, which you can't charge for. Software cost money and so does the computer. If you are not handy with a computer or software for imaging, you had to hire help and that added up to your final cost of delivery. This is something people take for granted in the digital world.

UK Rates For Google Street View Photography

Micro Business £195.00
Up to 5 Virtual Tour viewpointsUp to 10 Static PhotographsSetup of Google+ Local pageHosting on Google+ LocalEnhanced Google Search resultsIntegration into Google Street ViewIntegration into Google MapsQR codes linking to your tour

Small Business £245.00
Up to 10 Virtual Tour viewpointsUp to 10 Static PhotographsSetup of Google+ Local pageHosting on Google+ LocalEnhanced Google Search resultsIntegration into Google Street ViewIntegration into Google MapsQR codes linking to your tour 

Medium Business £345.00
Up to 20 Virtual Tour viewpointsUp to 15 Static PhotographsSetup of Google+ Local pageHosting on Google+ LocalEnhanced Google Search resultsIntegration into Google Street ViewIntegration into Google MapsQR codes linking to your tour 

Large Business £445.00
Up to 30 Virtual Tour viewpointsUp to 15 Static PhotographsSetup of Google+ Local pageHosting on Google+ LocalEnhanced Google Search resultsIntegration into Google Street ViewIntegration into Google MapsQR codes linking to your tour

US Rates for Google Street View Photography

Package One- $299Consists of approximately 1 hour of 360 Panorama Photography with up to 10 scenes of your business interior. Also included an additional 1/2 hour with up to 6 still photographs required by Google of your business, signage, and details of your location. Average business floor plan of 1500 sf or less. All images are uploaded to Google Pages for you.

Package Two- $399Consists of approximately 1.25 hours of 360 Panorama Photography with up to 15 scenes of your business interior. Also included an additional 1/2 hour with up to 6 still photographs required by Google of your business, signage, and details of your location, with and additional 1/2 hour shooting 10 still photographs specified by you. Average business floor plan of  2000 sf or less. All images are uploaded to Google Places for you.

Package Three-$499Consists of approximately 1.5 hours of 360 Panorama Photography with up to 30 scenes of your business interior. Also included an additional 1/2 hour with up to 6 still photographs required by Google of your business, signage, and details of your location, with and additional 1/2 hour shooting 10 still photographs specified by you. Average business floor plan of 2500 sf or less. Also, an additional 1/2 hour commercial portrait session with your team. All images are uploaded to Google Places for you.

Package Four – $999This is for a small Furniture store / Department Store / Large Retailer – Consists of approximately 2-4 hours of 360 Panorama Photography with up to 40 scenes of your business interior. Also included an additional 1/2 hour with up to 6 still photographs required by Google of your business, signage, and details of your location, with and additional 1/2 hour shooting 10 still photographs specified by you. Average business floor plan of 5000 to 7000 sf. Also, an additional 1/2 hour commercial portrait session with your team. All images are uploaded to Google Places for you.

Making Money Myth Dispelled

Yes, it's not a full time affair judging from the fees pros are charging for something like this. You can't possibly be charging these rates and relying on this to bring home the bacon so to speak. A typical package with a basic location shoot with travel time, planning and digital post production will cost you 4 hours tops. For US$299, that works out to less than a US$100 bucks an hour. In a day, you can only possibly do two clients, which means US$600 a day tops. Doesn't make sense if you are a Pro. Wedding photographers earn more than that in a single sitting. Judging from the fees charged now, you can safely assume that it is not a niche photography market.

If you are an amateur on the other hand, with a Ricoh Theta camera and a Tripod. It makes good sense to earn some pocket money by shooting an entire location with for a mere fee of US$299. That's coz the Ricoh Theta cost only US$399! You could get a return on investment real quick and make money on your second shoot. Sounds lovely but until Google makes that official, you won't be qualifying yourself as a Google Business Photographer.

Update: Google has introduced a new Street App, which allows you to upload bubble photos using an Android device and there is support for bubble photos shot on the new Ricoh Theta as well, however there is no word on this from Google to say that you can junk your DSLR in favor of the Ricoh point and shoot to qualify as a Google Business Photographer.