How to shoot breathtaking panoramas

When shooting landscapes, the results often lack impact because only part of the stunning scenes that our eyes see can be fitted into the frame. But you don’t have to spend thousands on an ultra-wide angle lens to solve this problem – with a bit of know-how, a decent tripod and some ordinary pan-stitching software you can use a normal lens to capture those wide, rolling vistas in their entirety.

Because this night panorama required a long exposure, some movement was recorded in the River Thames. This meant that a small amount of extra blending was required after the shots were stitched together.

When capturing your source images there are several important factors to consider. Midday isn’t a good time to shoot because it produces harsh shadows, bleached-out highlights and fl at colours. Varying weather conditions are also best avoided – you don’t want bright sun lighting one area and cloud over another. For the moodiest, most dramatic results shoot at the start or end of the day, but beware of rapidly changing light at sunrise and sunset. Unless you’re shooting at night when exposures are sufficiently long to blur subject movement, try to exclude moving subjects such as people, boats and even trees, as these will confuse the software.

To create panoramas that are quick and easy to stitch together, a sturdy tripod is essential. Handhold your camera and you’ll have a dreadful time matching up the shots later – even minute changes in camera positioning can alter perspective and skew horizons. Camera shake is also a big risk.

You can shoot great pans using a pan-andtilt head or a ball head on a pan base, but a specialist pano head will give you ultimate precision and ease of stitching. Pano heads enable you to rotate the camera precisely around the ‘nodal point’ of your lens. If the nodal point moves between photos, the apparent position of nearby objects shifts relative to the background (parallax error), causing ghosting when the shots are stitched.

Finally, don’t worry if you can’t afford (or carry) a specialist pano head – with landscapes where everything is in the distance you can get away without accurately aligning the nodal point.

1. Start keep a level head. Place your main subject to one side and balance the elements so there isn't a void in one area of the frame. Also consider using led-in lines to add depth and focus. If you are not using a specialist pano head that allows you to align the nodal point, exclude nearby foreground subjects to minimise parallax error. Now set up your tripod and head, checking your spirit level to ensure that the horizon is absolutely plumb.

2. Portrait orientation. Mount your camera in portrait orientation. You’ll need to take more shots to cover the same ground, but the image is taller and gives more leeway if the final stitch needs cropping. You can also use a longer focal length (35- 50mm) to avoid wide-angle distortion.

3. Focal length factor. Longer focal lengths also avoid vignetting, which can become blindingly apparent as abrupt brightness changes between frames. Allow for at least a quarter to a third of a frame of overlap for easy blending, particularly if your scene contains any moving elements.

4. The art of overlapping. Do a dummy run to check the number of exposures you’ll need for a 180-degree pass. If you’re shooting from right to left include a memorable area on the left of each frame in the following frame. If you’re using a pano head, measure and fix the degree of rotation.

5. Exposure essentials. The same exposure must be used for each shot to make the stitch smooth and convincing. For this reason it really helps to find a scene that’s evenly lit. If this isn’t possible, you’ll need to find an exposure compromise that works for the entire scene.

6. Take manual control. Avoid polarisers and ND filters as they can cause obvious changes at the edges of frames. Set maximum image quality and file size. Turn off all auto-exposure modes and go into Manual mode. Choose a small aperture (f/8-f/22), a slow ISO (200) and set Single AF.

7. White balance presets. With JPEGs don’t use auto white balance – switch to a preset for the predominant light source. Better still, shoot in RAW to ensure a consistent and accurate white balance throughout. Now take your meter reading from the brightest/most important frame.

8. Aperture priority options. Input the required shutter speed and do some test shots, checking your histogram as you go. If you’re happy, use this exposure throughout. If your Manual mode has no metering indicator, switch to AV, note the shutter speed, then set this in Manual mode.

9. Remote control. Alternatively, stay in AV and use AE Lock to fix the exposure. We shot at 4 sec and f/8. Now you’re set to shoot your sequence, preferably using a remote shutter release. Move the tripod head round carefully so as not to dislodge its level position.