Panoramic camera with a plurality of camera modules

A panoramic camera comprising:

• a housing having an axis;
• a plurality of camera modules received in the housing, each camera module comprising a lens, a reflective mirror, and an image sensor, the lenses of the camera modules each having an optical axis perpendicular to and coplanar with the axis, the camera modules configured for cooperatively forming a 360 degrees view image of the surrounding scene;
• a plurality of viewfinders associated with the respective camera modules, the viewfinders facing a common direction parallel to the axis;
• and
• an image processor, wherein, an angle is defined between the plane of the reflective mirror and a light sensing surface of the image sensor in each camera module, and each reflective mirror is rotatable between a first position where the angle is an acute angle, light is reflected by the reflective mirror to the corresponding viewfinder, and a second position where the angle is about 90 degrees, light is incident upon the light sensing surface of the image sensor without being reflected by the reflective mirror, and the image processor stitches together the individual images captured by the camera modules into a single panoramic image of the surrounding scene.