Advanced panorama techniques

For a greater level of control over your panorama-making process, I suggest the following camera and software processing tricks:

• Shoot in Manual Metering mode. Make a test shot in the approximate middle of the proposed scene and use that as your base exposure.
• Shoot with the Auto Focus turned Off. Manually focus on the scene and leave it off for the entire sequence.
• Use a leveled tripod.
• Some professionals even create a custom White Balance setting for the panorama because, in some situations, the light, and therefore the color, might change between section one and section five.
• If you think that you have forgotten to include one bit of the scene, it's fine to reshoot an area that you think you might have missed. The sequence order isn't important. I have actually mixed verticals with angled and horizontal images in one panorama and it still finds the edges and stitches them together perfectly.
• If the Automatic function doesn't pull everything together...