Panorama Shot Calculator

Panorama shot count determines how many individual frames you need to capture in order to stitch together a seamless wide-angle or 360° panoramic image. The formula must account for lens focal length (angle of view), desired overlap between frames, and whether you’re shooting a single-row or multi-row panorama.

Horizontal shot count formula: Shots = Total Horizontal Angle ÷ (Angle of View per Frame × (1 − Overlap))

Vertical shot count (for multi-row panoramas): Rows = Total Vertical Angle ÷ (Vertical AOV × (1 − Overlap))

Total frames = Horizontal Shots × Rows

Where:

• Total Horizontal Angle: 360° for full sphere, 180° for half-dome, or your chosen sweep angle
• Angle of View (AOV): determined by focal length and sensor size
• Overlap: expressed as a decimal; 0.30 = 30% overlap (minimum for reliable stitching)
• Recommended overlap: 30–40% for flat scenes; 40–50% for scenes with nearby subjects (parallax issues)

Approximate horizontal AOV by focal length (full-frame sensor):

• 14mm: ~104°
• 24mm: ~73°
• 35mm: ~54°
• 50mm: ~40°
• 85mm: ~24°
• 200mm: ~10°

Rotation per shot is not the effective angle of view

This one catches people out. The shot count gets rounded up, so dividing the sweep by the rounded count is what tells you how far to turn between frames:

Rotation per shot = Total Horizontal Angle ÷ Shots

Take a 360° sweep in 12 shots. Turning 32.4° each time walks the camera round 388.8° and the tripod head laps itself before you finish. Turning 360 ÷ 12 = 30° closes the circle exactly, and the 2.4° you gave up becomes extra overlap. Rounding always errs toward more overlap, which is the direction you want it to err.

Worked example: 360° sweep with a 35mm lens on full frame, held in landscape orientation, 40% overlap.

• Angle of view = 2 × arctan(36 ÷ (2 × 35)) = 54.4°
• Effective coverage per shot = 54.4° × 0.60 = 32.7°
• Shots = 360 ÷ 32.7 = 11.0, rounded up to 12
• Rotate 360 ÷ 12 = 30.0° between shots, giving 45% actual overlap

Now add vertical coverage of 90°, still in landscape. Vertical angle of view is 2 × arctan(24 ÷ 70) = 37.8°, effective 22.7°, so 90 ÷ 22.7 = 3.97 rounds to 4 rows and 48 frames in total.

Turn the camera to portrait and the numbers swap: the narrow 24mm sensor edge now runs horizontally, giving a 37.8° angle of view, so a single row jumps to 16 shots. You capture more sky and ground per frame in exchange, which is exactly the trade portrait orientation is for.

Key tips:

• Portrait orientation buys vertical coverage at the cost of more frames per row. On a wide-but-shallow landscape, landscape orientation is genuinely the better call.
• Use a nodal slide on your tripod to eliminate parallax error for close subjects
• Bracket exposure and use manual mode to avoid exposure variation between frames
• Most stitching software (Lightroom, PTGui, Hugin) wants 30% overlap as a floor, and 40% is the comfortable working figure. Push to 50% only when something is close enough to the lens to shift against the background as you pan.