[Sony Xperia P, U, Sola, Go] maistora:
I mentioned it briefly in another post and searched the forum - but found nothing.

I am talking about the Sweep Panorama mode of the Xperia-S camera. Not the '3D' versions, the 'normal' (2D) sweep panorama - the last icon in the first ('Shooting mode') menu. I tend to experience problems with it and am not sure if everyone has observed the same.

In Sweep Panorama mode, whatever direction of sweeping I choose, I tend to get error messages that either:

- I am sweeping too fast, or

- I am sweeping too slow, or

- just 'Picture could not be taken' with no explanation why.

I need to mention that I have plenty of sweeping experience on my previous Xperia X10 and on a Sony Nex camera - so I am sweeping really smoothly and at medium speed. Are the phone position sensors and accelerometers too sensitive? (And the camera software inadequately set to interpret them?).

This is happening in roughly 3 out of 4 attempts (or even 4 out of 5) making the function hardly usable and very annoying.

Ironically, while the X10 had no such function, I was using a 'beta' version (called Panorama Beta) as a standalone app, offered by Sony Ericsson on the Android Market (now Play Shop). Despite being a beta, that app worked flawlessly and never gave me such problems. I have many excellent panoramas from that, and some have even won photographic awards. I particularly like the 'vertorama' mode, i.e. vertical sweeping. With the camera in 'landscape' mode, this captures a square-ish rectangle - with a wider field of view and more scene detail, at highest possible resolution. To capture a square (or 4:3 'portrait') vertorama, you need to stop sweeping early - and the Beta app had a 'Stop' button.

The new version integrated within the Xperia camera has no 'Stop' and expects you to make very long sweeps. I tried to stop by pressing the on-screen or physical shutter button, but that produces the above errors - or a very long and narrow rectangle, half of it greyed and the other half a blurry, low resolution panorama.

Disappointed with the function, I wanted to use the standalone Panorama Beta app, but it doesn't appear in the Market. Is it withdrawn by Sony? (As no longer beta and included with newer firmware)? Or is it only not appearing for the Xperia-S - presuming you already have it?

I tried taking a backed-up .APK from the X10 and 'restoring' (installing) it on the X-S, but it does not install. The install process starts normally, but when the blue 'thermometer' finishes, the message is: 'The app did not install' - with no further explanation. I imagine it discovers the newer version already installed and avoids a conflict with it?

All other 'panorama' apps on the market are much worse, from primitive to utter rubbish. They are either not 'sweep' and ask you to take multiple separate shots, asking you to manually align them to on-screen guide marks, before running a 'stitch' operation (resulting in very poor blends with obvious fault lines). Or they shoot relatively smoothly, but the end image is very lo-res, small in size and out of focus. Among all of them the Photaf app was closest to 'working' but it's only horizontal and stitches are a hit-and-miss (most of the time a miss - too obvious).

Can others, please, share experiences with the Sweep Panorama mode in the Xperia-S camera? Does it work for you or have you got similar problems? Has anyone found solutions?

Any suggestions how to make the Beta standalone app install and work? (The new one isn't standalone, so I am not sure I'll be able to uninstall it, even when I root the phone).

Thanks for any info!