The free Nokia Panorama app has been available on Nokia Lumia for over a year now, but it has recently received an update that enables you to take even bigger panoramas than before – thanks to portrait support.

Taking a panorama has historically resulted in a long, thin photo running horizontally. And while this does exactly what you would expect it to do (i.e. capture a wider shot), it has sadly neglected the space above and below, where interesting things may also be happening. Additionally, a long thin photo can be tricky to view, as you need a lot of screen real estate to view it properly.

New portrait support in Nokia Panorama means that instead of holding your phone only in landscape mode, you can now spin it around on its axis and hold your Nokia Lumia with one hand, capturing more of the environment in front of you.

Nokia Panorama works in very much the same way as before, except for the way you hold the phone.

After taking an initial photo, Nokia Panorama suggests you move your phone around to the right, following the on-screen positioning tool – a line leading to a circle. The line indicates in which direction you need to move and once the circle is in the centre of your screen, Nokia Panorama will automatically take the next shot.

Nokia Panorama will take up-to five photos, but you can stop it at anytime if you feel you’ve captured enough of the scene. After you’ve taken all the photos needed, the app will automatically stitch all the images together into a single shot.

Click through to see the full image.

Once you’ve created a panorama there’s the option to edit it within Creative Studio, and also to share it via Facebook, Twitter, email or messaging, as well as other channels.

While Nokia Panorama now supports portrait mode, you’re still able to take panoramas in landscape, too, giving you more flexibility when it comes to capturing the perfect panorama.

Nokia Panorama runs on Nokia Lumia smartphones with Windows Phone 8.