Nohr Photo
Panorama Information
Panoramas are typically made by stitching a number of photos together. They can be stitched vertically, horizontally, or both for really big ones. I mostly do horizontal ones, which are like really wide photos. There is more to producing a high quality panorama than just taking some pictures and sticking them together.

Modern stitching software is very good in producing panoramas from a series of pictures, but for the highest quality some care should be taken during the image capture. A tripod is recommended, and a special panoramic head makes the job easier. The panorama head allows for easy rotation to take each of the images. In order to provide perfect stitching it is important that the camera be rotated about the "nodal" point of the lens. This will prevent the apparent shifting of the relationship between foreground and background objects that otherwise happens when the camera is simply rotated. The panorama heads allows the camera to be moved back and forth to find the nodal point. This is easily done experimentally by performing the following steps.

1. Find a location with an easily distinguished foreground object that is fairly close to the camera, say 10-15 feet. The background should have enough detail so that the position of the forground object relative to the background can be seen and watched. If nothing else have someone hold a broomstick still at the appropriate distance from the camera.

2. While watching the foreground rotate the camera left and right and see if the foreground moves relative to the background.

3. If the foreground moves, move the camera forward or background on the panorama head and then repeat 2 to see if the movement is better or worse.

4. Keep repeating 2 and 3 until the motion of the foreground is minimized.

It is best to use manual exposure. Point the camera in the direction of the average light and set the exposure. Take the photos.

Next get the images into your stitching software. I use the automatic stitching program Autopano from Kolor. It is an excellent tool and works very quickly. It is also possible to manually use Photoshop. Some cameras come with stitching software that often works reasonably well. I have tried many packages but Autopano is my favorite.

Equipment I use
Panorama Head Bogen 330 ??? It is a bit heavy, but very solid and well built. The number of detents is easily adjustable.
Software Autopano Pro from Kolor
Image Editing Photoshop CS2
Tripod Bogen 3001Pro
Camera Canon EOS 5D
Lens 24-105mm L usually, but sometimes I use a 28mm prime.