Image credit: Jim Bracegirdle

The Rockwood Conservation Area has a nice hiking trail around the lake and it was on one of my walks that the lighting and the composition all came together.
A tripod is very helpful when trying to make panorama pictures. This image is composed of 27 individual shots, all taken vertically. I take 9 shots of the sky then another 9 of the middle ground and finally 9 shots of the foreground.
To help with the alignment of all these shots I made a bracket out of pieces of wood and a lazer levelling device with an adjustment platform built in. I only needed the adjustment platform for my homemade contraption.
All settings on the camera should be in the Manual Mode. Colour balance should be set to Daylight and not Auto white balance.
This will prevent a colour shift if the sun or clouds should change during the exposures.
I use the 50mm lens on my digital camera and I set the aperture to f 16 and whatever shutter speed that aperture demands with the ISO speed I have chosen. I then set the focus point to 27 feet ( 8.25 metres ), this will determine that everything will be sharp from 6 feet ( 1.8 metres ) all the way to infinity. It is called "hyperfocal distance" but don't worry about the theory, just go out and enjoy taking the pictures.
Each of the shots should be overlapped by 15-20%. Just note mentally where a tree or similar object is in the frame and move the composition the required amount for overlapping.
All shots should start at the same extreme left edge for the 3 different levels, this will provide a uniform beginning and ending point after the 9 shots are taken. The tripod is the key to success.
With the sale of new digital cameras today there is usually included some bundled software which gives the ability to Photostitch and tweak the colours nicely in your photos .
Your computer and the bundled software that came with your camera "Adobe Photoshop, Elements etc." will open up a whole new experience for you now.
My first panorama was just 9 shots of Niagara Falls, but it looked too long and narrow to suit me. Click to open Niagara Falls image