Explore the big country
Mark Hamblin gets stitched up as he shows how to set your camera to take perfect panoramas
A panoramic image closely matches our own view of the world, so it’s a very natural way to photograph the landscape. And the good news is that shooting panoramas has never been easier. You can even do it with your smartphone. For a more professional result, though, use your SLR to take a series of overlapping shots that can be stitched together using Photoshop or other software to create gorgeous panoramas.
You can do this hand-held, but using a tripod will give you better control over framing. Try to get the tripod and camera level so that the resulting
“Hand-hold the camera and simply twist your body from left to right while looking through the viewfinder”
panorama won’t have any gaps along the top and bottom edges. The golden rule for shooting panoramas is to do everything manually. This means using manual exposure, manual white balance and manual focus so that each frame will blend seamlessly with the others.
Get creative
Shooting in a vertical panoramic format will give you more options with cropping, and help you include more foreground and sky. It also means you can use a longer focal length, which usually gives a better perspective and less distortion.
Composing a panorama can be tricky, but a good way to start is to hand-hold the camera and simply twist your body from left to right while looking through the viewfinder to see how it’ll look. Try to include interest right across the panorama. One side can be more dominant than the other, but there should be a natural flow from left to right – or vice versa, depending on how you see the world!