DSLRUsers.com

I've seen several excellent panorama shots here recently and that inspired me to try some of my own last weekend... Needless to say - none of them worked out the way I wanted , so I thought I'd seek some basic guidance from those in the know...

Apart from the obvious like using a tripod & leveling the camera
a. do you prefer using portrait or landscape for your individual photos?
b. roughly what amount of overlap do you allow in %?
c. how do you cope with moving objects (e.g. boats on the harbour)?
d. obviously it's preferable if not essential to keep focal length the same, but what else do you need to keep control of to get an even exposure across the panorama?
e. what software do you prefer/recommend for assembling panoramas?
f. what total angle of view makes a good pano? too small and you may as well not have bothered - too wide and it looks artificial???
g. What is the advantage of using an advanced ball-head (terminology?)for the tripod rather than a normal head?
h. Anything else I haven't mentioned??? Probably...

The aim of this thread is to gather advice and promote discussion...

Let's collect all of your advice in one place for beginners...

If it gets a good response, I'll assemble all the best advice into a Tutorial for the tutorials section...

Hi leek - this link may be of use to you

http://www.path.unimelb.edu.au/~bernardk/tutorials/360/photo/nodal.html

Chris

Leek, I can confirm one point - they are not easy.

I will be trying a few on my forthcoming holidays, can't wait.

I'll input on a couple of points, despite not having a successful pano in the bag..

a. you get a lot more detail shooting portrait.

f. I don't think artificial matters, a pano is wider than our normal field of vision so it is reasonable for it to look a bit artifical.

Although there have a been a couple of good hand held panos here, I reckon a good tripod is very useful, whatever kind of head (I would think maintaining a consistent vertical aspect would be important, so maybe ball not ideal. Guessing)

sirhc55 wrote:Hi leek - this link may be of use to you

http://www.path.unimelb.edu.au/~bernardk/tutorials/360/photo/nodal.html

Chris

Thanks for that link... How could I hope to add to that???

Haven't managed to take a decent pano yet with my D70, but here's one I took handheld (with my Sony P&S!!!!) on a bushwalking trip into very remote Ku-ring-gai NP last year...
http://www.pixspot.com/displayimage.php?album=74&pos=2