After the advent of photography in 1839, people were eager to share the landscapes and overviews of cities around them. Early panoramas, which date as far back as 1845, were created by arranging two or more daguerreotype plates side-by-side. The earliest recorded patent for a camera that made panoramas belongs to an Austrian man named Joseph Puchberger. It was a hand crank driven swing lens that required daguerrotype plates 19 to 24-inches long. The late 19th century saw cameras being manufactured specifically for creating panoramas, with the Al-Vista being the first mass-produced panoramic camera in the United States. It had been invented by Peter N Angsten and Charles H Gesbeck in 1896. Their device used a 4-inch film with a 160° field of view. These mass produced cameras did not require tripods.
