What a great lateral thinking idea - why has no one done this before? Our smartphones all now have panorama functions either built-in or easily added using free software - but why not use this same panorama system with the phone turned on its side, to capture a vertical panorama? The very fact that you're taking a vertical slice out of a scene rather than a squashed landscape one opens up all sorts of creative possibilities. Plenty of links and examples below.

The idea was first broached (well, in my consciousness anyway) by Marc from the PureView Club (apparently inspired by Abdul Rehman, see comments below), with the snowy example on the left, below. He then had another example sent to him by Abdul, of a watery plume, on the right, below. In each case, click on the image to bring it up in larger form.

On Symbian, you can create these sort of panoramas using a number of apps, including Nokia Panorama and Camera Lover Pack (which, incidentally, has just been updated to v1.1.9, with stability fixes for the Nokia 808).

On Windows Phone, there's Nokia's Panorama 'lens' or the third party Panorama Image.

Great work by the two photographers above - finding subjects that work well and are lit well enough for a panorama isn't trivial.

What do you think? Care to try a vertical panorama of your own?