Advice, set up for panroamics?

Edit: make that: Advice, set up for panoramics?

Just got into trying out panoramics and need some advice on shooting and stitching.

Shot the sample image below (see link) using M mode, MF and swiveled around on a tripid. Also changed AWB to Cloudy. However the colours etc are different throughout. Can I do anything else in camera to prevent this and give me consitency?

Also I was shooting at 18mm, I presume this causes the images to 'fish-eye' at the sides so they don't fit perfectly, (hence the increased rotation of each picture) would this be prevented shooting at 20-30mm?

http://www.flickr.com/​photos/pete-eos/280725990/

I shoot mine in RAW. Gives a little more wiggle room in adjusting the differences in WB and exposure for each frame. There are some panoramic softwares that will balance the exposures throughout. Shooting with a wide angle will create some distortion and make stitching harder. Yes, I would shoot either with your 50mm or keep the focal length above 25mm. Also use the focus points in the camera to guage how much overlap each image has. Looks like some of yours has too little while others had too much. Keep at it. Practice, Practice, Practice....

Thanks, just stitching the RAW version and the colours are much closer! also found cropping the sides removes some of the curvature..

Now all I need is a computer than can cope with the file sizes

As you found out shoot RAW, but also expose for the brightest part of the sky then balance with the darkest. Shoot in portrait and with a prime (the one I have found so far that is good for this is the 35/F2). Tripod is critical as well, make sure it's level! Do each rotation 2/3s across leaving a third to stitch into the previous image, this can be tricky to do but do mental 'points' as you rotate.

Don't expect all the images to match, they won't. You will need to sit down with PS or a Panorama stitching program to get the shot looking 'right'.

An example of a 35/f2 stitch can be found here:

https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=226088

Hey, thanks, think I need to go away and learn about exposing for different areas!

Did a quick shoot a few days ago using a tripod, didn't set it up perfectly though, need to work on that as well! It's 10 images stitched together and is 2 metres wide @300dpi!

So heres a small version, just noticed how much the sea/horizon curves lol

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lol, the widest I have done is 25 image stitched together. To print at full resolution it was around 19ft long by about 9 inches high!

You've done a pretty good job with that pano, apart from one image that went slightly skew whiff. All you have to do now is master blending the shots together and shoot portrait to give you the height

Remember it's better to shoot with God's Softbox instead of bright sunny days it makes matching the images a lot easier.