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Digital Photography Tutorials

No matter if you are above the mountains, the hills or on the field, a large panorama will always be impressive. A tripod will give you the possibility to merge the pictures precisely. There are some tripods on the market made especially for panoramic shooting. (Actually there are some cameras that shoot only in panoramic mode). Some camera manufactures include a panoramic shooting mode which I find very useful: you can see the previous shoot and continue the next shot approximately where the other one ended. Canon cameras allow a bigger number of shots (I haven’t tried to find out the limit since I could easy make a 360 out of 13), while Nikon and Olympus only allows a few number of shots.

If the sky is interesting, like for example with more types of clouds on different highs, you can try a vertical panorama. A vertical view is also recommended for vertical cliffs.
When shooting horizontal pictures for a horizontal panorama, make sure the horizon line is not in the middle. Be careful at the exposure compensation (decrease it a bit like 1/3 step) or otherwise you will end up hawing a burned (white) sky.

Depending on what you’re shooting, you can have between 2-3 shoot and 5-7. In the examples below, the rainbow view was blocked by a tree, so the panorama is no longer than 2 photos. The other examples begin and end with the hills/rocks nearby, resulting in around 7 shots.

Later on, you can merge the images in a variety of programs. I use Photostitch software that came with my Canon digital camera. It’s easy to use and very precise.
If everything around you is interesting and you want a complete memory of the place, nothing stops you from making a 360 degrees panorama (this would be like around 10 shots). Photostich has a nice viewer for 360 panoramas, going round and round it. For webpages check this out.

Tags: panorama, panoramic view, landscape panorama, phototitch, vertical panorama, 360 panorama