The debut of our new Gear Talk feature. What to see something featured in Gear Talk? Tell us in the comments!

Panoramic photographs: Ask most people how to make one, and they’ll say you splice several digital shots together in Photoshop, or, if your camera allows, use a built-in digital stitch and sweep the scene. But as with most things digital there was first an analog solution. Enter the swing-lens panoramic camera, a camera I’ve found to be an indispensable tool.

If a swing-lens camera has you scratching your head, you’re not alone. A more obscure camera, it was mainly used for landscapes and group portraits before the digital revolution came along and displays started needing higher resolution than a cropped 35mm frame. [Read more…]