Sports fans are always looking for collectible items that pay tribute to a favorite team, sport or individual athlete. Framed sport photoramics and panoramas have gained in popularity among sports fans and collectors alike. No other medium can provide such powerful imagery and be small enough to hang in your wall.

Panoramas have been around since the late seventeen hundreds. The art form was developed well before the advent of photography. Artists like Robert Barker, the great Irish painter created striking panoramic images on a room size cylinder. The cylindrical format gave the viewer a sense of being part of the image. Painters began to compete against each other, creating larger and larger cylinder panoramic scenes. Some cylinder panoramas exceeded forty feet in diameter and forty feet in height. Cylinder panoramas are considered the inspiration for the modern day IMAX film technology. These images were so stunning they still considered to be among the great visual achievements of the age.

With the advent of photographic plate and film photography, the creation of panoramic photo images took a giant technological leap forward in the early nineteenth century. This is not to say that process of creating a panoramic image was easy. Exposure times, lighting and the need to take multiple images was quite time consuming. Despite the technical challenges of this emerging technology, photographers were able to produce images of striking acuity and clarity.

Advances in film technology shortened the time needed to produce a panoramic image. The need to capture multiple images and paste them together was gradually replaced by advances in camera optical technology. The introduction of the wide angle lens meant that fewer images were needed to create a panorama. Photographers still had to deal with a certain degree of optical distortion.

The introduction of digital has forever changed the art of photography and the production of panoramas. Through the use of sophisticated computer software, digital images can be manipulated in ways that were impossible before. Digital images can be edited pixel by pixel, eliminating the fish eye effect that often resulted in wide angle film photography. Each pixel represents a tiny fraction of the image. The digital process of stitching allows multiple images to be knitted together, reducing visual distortion and creating nearly perfect panoramic images.

Photoramics are a compilation of images that are used to express a certain theme. Somewhat different from traditional panoramic images, photoramics reflect a photographic compilation of various images. The images that are used to create a photoramic are can be photographic or include others types media such as painted backgrounds, art drawings, and other types of graphic images.

Sports heroes old and new are portrayed in sport photoramics that can highlight or profile an entire career. Team profiles and histories can be found gracing some of the best selling photoramics. There are photoramics, which highlight achievements of individuals and teams as well as memorable moments in sports history. The Great American Pastime of major league baseball, the excitement of boxing, and the glory of sports like football and basketball can be found in uniquely designed photoramics.

Muhammad Ali remains one of the most recognized sports celebrities in the world. Many books and retrospective films have been produced profiling his incredible career as a boxer and his life as a man. Imagine a sport photoramic featuring a retrospective of his life and career hanging on the wall your home or office. In a single sport photoramic, fans can stand witness to Ali the Olympic boxer, his world championship years and his memorable presentation of the Olympic torch that kicked off the 1996 Olympics.

Baseball fans can relive the heroic spirit of player like Lou Gehrig, the quirky charm New York Yankees manager Yogi Berra, and the optimistic swagger of New York Jets quarterback Broadway Joe Namath. Through the magic of a finely crafted sport photoramic, basketball fans can revel in the grace and hustle of great athletes like Michael Jordan, the speed of Lakers great Magic Johnson and the youthful power of Clevelands LeBron James.

Many great sports teams have reached the heights of a championship and these achievements are a favorite subject of collectible sport photoramics. Sport photoramics can provide fans with an immediately sense of the emotion that comes with a great accomplishment. From the excitement of a Super Bowl championship game to the World Series of baseball, sport photoramics can take sports fans back in history to a time when Babe Ruth was the Sultan of Swat and the Steel Curtin Defense of the Pittsburg Steelers struck fear into the hearts of opposing football linemen.

Few sports rival the excitement of auto racing. From Formula One and Indy car racing to the flat out style of NASCAR, racing has gained a tremendous number of new fans over the years. Fans of auto racing can find sport photoramics of their favorite drivers and racing teams. Great drivers like the late Dale Earnhardt are forever immortalized in sport photoramics, giving race fans the chance to pay homage to this champion of stock car racing. Living racing legends like Al Unser and Richard Petty have been joined by latter day stars like Jeff Burton and Jeff Gordon and Jeff Burton. Sports photoramics are a great way to pay tribute to your favorite brand of auto racing or your favorite driver.

College basketball and football have legions of fans and some of the great college sports and legendary collegiate players are featured subjects of sport photoramics. Fans can find a wide variety of sport photoramics the pay tribute to the great players, teams and coaches of collegiate sports. Like sport panoramas, sport photoramics can be found on many quality websites and both can be purchased framed or unframed. Framed sport photoramics are the perfect gift for the sports fan in your life and would be cherished for many years to come.

Online shopping offers consumers a convenient way to find images of your favorite sport or athlete and shopping for framed panoramas and photoramics is easier than ever. Sport photoramics and panoramas are available at many sites that offer a variety of choices when it comes to custom framing and matte options that can enhance the look of your sport photoramic collection.