My first experience of shooting several photographs with a view to creating a panorama from them was such an incredible failure in both technique and subject that I have always been retiscent to try it again. If I remember correctly - and I probably don't - it was a foreboding seascape on the west coast of the isle of Skye in the inner Hebrides of Scotland. In a display of such exquisite schoolboy errors, I shot each photo with its own exposure and focus. I did get one thing right though, I kept the shots perfectly level. Unsurprisingly, when I returned home and let Photoshop do its thing, the stitching of the photos was enough to make a grown man weep - well, me at least. With a separate exposure for each photograph, the levels were all over the place. In one photo a tree was in deep shadow, and the same tree in the next photo was just shy of being over exposed. In another photo the focus was on a particular plane and in the following shot the focus was pushed further out drawing the viewer's attention to the obvious join.
Last year, while travelling to Tuscany, to a small village called Pino, I swallowed my pride and gave it a shot again. This time following some advice from a friend. Fix the focus for all shots and wherever possible, keep the same exposure. I did this, again doing all I could to ensure all the shots were level. This time, Photoshop's labours resulted in a more agreeable image than the isle of Skye disaster.
Though I felt I had now comfortably exorcised my panoramic demons it inexplicably took me another eleven months before I attempted another. This time in Þingvellir national park in Iceland. Standing at the viewpoint, the scene in front of me was perfect, a looming sense of ominous loneliness broken only by the tourists passing behind me as I took the shots. I ensured I had manually set the focus and exposure before I started and worked hard to keep all the shots on a level horizontal plane. As I sat in the car reviewing the images, I noticed a growing sense of excitement that when stitched together, this panorama might actually just work and after returning home and letting Photoshop merge the photos, out it came, as you see it below.
The whole experience reminded me that no matter how much I think I have learned over the comparatively short time I've been shooting, there is always a whole lot more to learn, and I don't imagine that ever coming to an end. Even the masters, i'm sure, are still learning with every shot they take. Do any of you have any similar stories to share?
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