What does my digital camera's "panoramic mode" or "stitch mode" do?

What does my digital camera's "panoramic mode" or "stitch mode" do?

Mark Comon (Vice President, Paul's Photo, Torrance, CA) gives expert video advice on: What does the "widescreen mode" on my digital camera do?; What does my digital camera's "panoramic mode" or "stitch mode" do?

The stitch mode or panoramic mode on your digital camera allows you to attach in the camera more than one picture together. If most of your compact digital cameras take an image that is approximately 4 millimeters in 35 millimeter film, about 50-55 degree field of view... what happens if I want to take a broader field of view? What you do is in the stitch mode the camera tells you to take a picture here, a picture here, a picture here and then combines them to make a long skinny picture in the camera giving you a wide angle picture when you don't have a wide angle camera. It's a pretty cool thing but remember the files are going to be ginormous. They are going to be three times normal. A lot of people have a hard time viewing with the stitch panoramic because they're big files and their computers, their screens, their printers aren't made to handle them.