There are a few ways to do it. There is a special lens out there that contains a spherical mirror that is mounted right in the middle of the frame, when attached to a camera and the camera is pointed up, the camera captures a 360 degree image that must then be unwarped with special software.
There is a cheap HD camcorder that has a tiny version of one of those lenses.. I forget the brand.. I have heard that it works better than you would expect from something that tiny.
The other way is to use several cameras and wide angle lenses and synchronize all the cameras so that the frames are captured at the exact same moment. This is very hard to do with USB2 and impossible with USB 1 but quite possible with Firewire and USB 3.
That way, you can get very high resolution images.
I dont know anyone who has tried to use composite video in this kind of multi camera situation. It seems better suited to digital capture.
Google for full motion panorama..
Originally Posted by
fuji86
Sony has a camera that does panoramic views. It takes a still that allows you to press the shutter and sweep thru a still. Would be neat if they could find a way to do that with a video camera, perhaps with three headed normal view lensed camera that synchronizes the video ?