How many frames the sweep needs
Frame count for any arc at your chosen overlap, including multi-row grids and the wrap at 360° that catches most calculators out.
Panorama planner
Stitched size (optional)
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The arithmetic, and the 360° wrap
advance per frame = FOV × (1 − overlap)
frames = ceil((sweep − FOV) ÷ advance) + 1
The − FOV and + 1 are there because the first frame covers a whole field of view before any advance happens. Drop them and you are one frame short at every angle.
A full circle is different. At 360° the last frame overlaps the first, so there is no leftover first frame to account for and the formula becomes ceil(360 ÷ advance). Using the open-arc formula at 360° gives you one frame too many and, worse, a gap where the ends meet. This page switches formulas at 360.
Because frame counts are whole numbers, the real overlap is nearly always a little more generous than requested. Both figures are shown — reporting only what you asked for would be a small untruth.
Overlap: why 30% and not 10%
Stitching software matches features between frames, and it needs enough shared detail to find them. Ten percent works on a busy scene with a normal lens and fails on a plain sky. Thirty percent is the usual compromise. Go higher — 40% or more — for wide lenses, where distortion means the overlapping regions do not look quite the same shape, and for scenes with little texture.
The cost of extra overlap is frames, and frames are time: the light and the clouds move while you shoot.
The thing that actually ruins panoramas
Not the frame count — parallax. If the camera rotates about anything other than the lens's entrance pupil, near and far objects shift relative to each other between frames and no stitcher can reconcile them. On a distant landscape it rarely shows. Put anything within a few metres in the frame and it shows badly, as a torn or doubled edge exactly where the frames meet.
A nodal slide fixes it properly. Failing that, keep everything far away, and rotate about the lens rather than about your body.
Practical notes
Shoot in portrait. Turning the camera vertical gives more height for the same number of frames, which is why it is the default here — you need the vertical coverage more than you need the frames.
Lock everything. Manual exposure, manual focus, manual white balance. Anything on automatic will change between frames and leave visible bands across the finished image.
Level the base. An unlevelled tripod makes the sweep arc across the frame, and squaring it off afterwards costs a surprising amount of the image.
Related
Field of view calculator for the angles these counts are built from, and depth of field for keeping the whole sweep sharp.
Questions people actually ask
How many photos for a 180° panorama?
It depends entirely on your lens and format. A 35mm on full frame held portrait covers about 37° vertically and 54° horizontally — turned vertical you get roughly 37° per frame, so 180° at 30% overlap needs about seven frames. A 14mm needs three; an 85mm needs fifteen. Enter your own numbers above rather than trusting a fixed count.
Does a 360° panorama need the same maths?
No, and this is where most calculators get it wrong. On an open arc the first frame covers a full field of view before any turning happens, so the formula carries a −FOV and a +1. On a full circle the last frame overlaps the first, those terms vanish, and the count is simply 360 divided by the advance. Using the open-arc formula at 360° gives one frame too many and leaves a gap at the join.
How much overlap do I need?
Between 25 and 35% for most situations. Push toward 40% with wide lenses, where distortion makes the overlapping areas differ in shape, and with plain subjects like sky or fog where the software has few features to match. Less than 20% will fail on anything without strong texture.
Why do my panoramas have torn edges?
Almost always parallax. If the camera rotates about the tripod screw rather than about the lens's entrance pupil, near objects shift against far ones between frames and no software can reconcile that. It is invisible on distant landscapes and obvious as soon as something is within a few metres.
Should I shoot portrait or landscape?
Portrait, usually. Turning the camera vertical gives considerably more vertical coverage for the same number of frames, and vertical coverage is what you run out of first — especially after levelling and cropping the finished image to a rectangle.