ven in the infancy of their medium, photogra­ A variety of cameras was designed over the next sixty phers sought a means of extending the frame of years that incorporated one of three techniques, all of E a photograph beyond its conventional propor­ which enabled the panoramic image to be made within tions. William Henry Fox Talbot, developer of the the camera itself: a sweeping lens and curved film calotype, the negative/positive process that he refined plane, such as the Megaskop; an extremely wide-angle, two years after he and J. L. M. Daguerre revealed to fixed lens and fixed film plane; or a fixed lens on a cam­ the world their different methods of photography, was era that rotates as the film is driven through a flat creating panoramic views as early as 1843. Talbot pro­ plane. duced his panoramas by making a sequence of overlap­ Until the invention of roll film in 1885, these cameras ping photographs that were displayed as pieced- were generally used only by professional photographers together sections to produce a continuous view. While or serious amateurs. Cameras such as the Multiscope early daguerreans also used this method for the same and Film Company’s Al-Vista (1898), the first popular effect, Friedrich von Martens invented the first pano­ panoramic camera, or Eastman Kodak’s Panoram ramic camera in 1844, the Megaskop, designed with a (1899) were easy for anyone to use, and a fascination movable lens that panned across a scene to produce a with the panoramic photograph became widespread. 150-degree view on a curved daguerreotype plate. In the midst of this popular interest, the Rochester