As a photographer, or even a nature lover, you’ve probably stood staring at a wide vista wondering how you can possibly do that view justice in your photographs. Â Maybe you’ve even wanted to be able to print that picture large to give a room in your home the same feel as actually standing there. Â Have you ever thought about taking multiple images of a scene and stitching them together into a panorama?
Shooting “panos” has become more popular in the last few years with the advent of point-and-shoot digital cameras that stitch the image in-camera for you, but if you want to shoot a panorama with your SLR, there are some things to consider. Â First, and this should be a no-brainer, pick something interesting to shoot. Â It may look impressive as is, but if you pick out something with substance, it will look even better!
So you’ve got your vista picked out. Â Now what? Â In my experience, the key to producing quality panoramas is making sure your tripod is level. Â If this is the case, you will have much better luck at the stitching process. Â I have used two different methods to level my gear; the first is via a 2-stop process that’s super cheap.
My tripod does not have a built-in bubble level, so I start by removing the head, and placing a bubble level (~$3 at Ace Hardware) on the tripod. Â Tinker with the lengths of your tripod legs until you level the tripod. Â Now, put your head back on, and you’ll see that it can rotate on a level base.

By removing the head and using a spirit bubble level, I can make sure my tripod head is rotating on a level base.
The second, and more recent, method I’ve used is by putting a leveling base on my tripod. Â I use the Manfrotto 438 leveling base, but other companies like Acratech also make them. Â They’re more expensive than my first method, but they’re way faster and you don’t have to fiddle with your tripod legs. Â To level your camera on your tripod use a hot shoe level like the Jobu Designs Dubble Bubble level.

My tripod head can be leveled easily and quickly using the Manfrotto 438 leveling base.

After leveling my tripod head, I level my camera on the tripod using a hotshoe level.
OK, now you’re level. Â The rest of the pano practically shoots itself. Â I usually work from left to right, making sure to overlap my images by anywhere from ~1/3-1/2. Â This makes for a lot of images (many of mine are 12-15 images) but you’re almost sure to get a better stitch at the computer.
A couple of other things to consider before we discuss stitching:
- To shoot vertical or horizontal…that is the question. Â In stitching, you’re almost guaranteed to lose a little of the top and bottom of your images because the software will correct for barrel distortion. Â Because of this, I almost always shoot my panos in a vertical orientation. Â That way I’m left with an image that is a little more proportional, instead of something VERY long and skinny!
- Just like with any shot, sharpness matters. Â When I shoot panoramas, I almost always use a cable release and set my camera to shoot in mirror lock-up mode. Â This reduces any possible vibration, hopefully ensuring a better stitch.
- Do not change your focus or any camera settings while shooting your panorama. Â However, consider bracketing your shots. Â That way you have more to work with at the computer, and you can even consider making an HDR panorama (let’s save that for another blog post, please).
- I haven’t addressed the problem of parallax yet. Â Unless you are rotating on the nodal point of your lens (or using a pano slider), you will have parallax issues if anything in your pano is closer than ~10-15 feet. Â The cheap solution is to make sure trees, rocks, etc are further than ~10-15 feet from my camera, and that seems to work to subdue parallax. Â The obvious downside to my method is that you’re constrained as to your compositional choices.
So, now you’ve got your image files, and you’re back at the computer. Â Can you simply align them in Photoshop manually, then crop the canvas down to its final size? Â I think this works for most people ~1% of the time (I’ve managed to do it once, and I’m 99% sure it was dumb luck). Â Every other time, the barrel distortion, as well as other factors, will necessitate the use of software to help you stitch your images together.

Dumb luck. I stitched this 4-image pano together manually--I've never gotten it to work since.
For stitching panoramas, I use the software package Panorama Factory. Â I like it because it has a fully automatic mode, which should work really well if you leveled your rig properly and provided enough overlap between images. Â Alternatively, Panorama Factory allows for various levels of manual stitching, letting you define stitching points, and for the occasional difficult to stitch image, I like that mode a lot as well. Â If you are interested in shooing HDR panoramas, Panorama Factory will stitch different sets of exposure identically so they overlay perfectly. Â I have to admit that I’ve tried this once, and it didn’t work quite as smoothly as I’d like. Â I’ve found that using the auto-align feature in Photoshop CS4 works well before blending images.
So, that’s basically it. Â This tutorial was meant to get you taking beautiful panoramas using a minimal amount of equipment. Â I hope you enjoyed it. Â Feel free to add to the comment section if there’s anything I missed, or needs corrected. Â Hope you can find this useful!

An 11-image panorama of the Ritter Range, Sierra Nevada, California