Panorama Overlap Calculator
Enter your focal length, sensor width, and target overlap to get the rotation step and shot count for a stitched panorama.
Shot plan
How the shot plan is built
The calculator first finds your lens's horizontal angle of view from its focal length and your sensor's width, using the standard optics formula. It then shrinks that angle by your target overlap percentage to get the rotation step between shots, and works out how many whole steps are needed to cover the panorama sweep you specified — rounding up, since a partial extra shot is still a full shot.
Because the shot count has to be a whole number, the panorama's actual sweep is divided evenly across that many shots, which usually gives a slightly smaller rotation step — and therefore slightly more overlap — than you originally targeted. That's shown as the “actual” figures alongside the initial calculation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do I need overlap between panorama shots at all?
Stitching software works by finding matching features between adjacent frames and blending them together. With no overlap there's nothing to match; too little overlap and the software can pick the wrong match or leave a visible seam. 20-30% overlap is the range most stitching guides recommend as a reliable middle ground.
How is the angle of view calculated?
From the standard optics relationship between focal length and sensor width: the angle of view equals twice the arctangent of half the sensor width divided by the focal length. A wider sensor or a shorter focal length both widen the angle of view, which means fewer shots are needed to cover the same sweep.
Why is my actual overlap higher than what I asked for?
The rotation step is rounded down to a whole number of shots that evenly divides the panorama sweep, since a panoramic head typically clicks to fixed positions. Dividing the sweep by a whole number of shots usually leaves a slightly smaller step than the target, which pushes the achieved overlap a little above what you requested.
Do I need a panoramic tripod head for this?
A panoramic (nodal-point) head helps by rotating the camera around the lens's entrance pupil rather than the tripod's center, which avoids parallax errors on close subjects. For distant landscapes, parallax matters much less, and a standard ball head panned carefully is often good enough.
Educational tool only. Results assume a rectilinear lens and a level horizon — a fisheye lens or a significantly tilted panorama will need adjustment beyond this simple model.