Having problems with pano's

Last monday i took a trip down to jersey city,nj to do a pano of the old train sheds of the central railroad of nj. I used my xt with tokina 12-24 with a monopod. I know i should've used a tripod but monopod was all i had.

I took 8 pictures starting with the center of the sheds and going left then to the right. When i used photomerge in PSE 2.0 i got different skies and forground colors. I used the camera in full manual mode. Would a tripod have made any difference in this? It really got me mad when i saw this, it just added to the other crap pics i've taken this week (one of those weeks)

Did I do the pano wrong but starting in the middle of the subject and going to the left while overlapping atleast 50% and then going back to center and going to the right with 50% overlap.

Here is the link for the pic since its a bit bigger then what's allowed on the site.
CRRNJ Pano

Different skies and colors? The two things that pop immediately to mind are using Auto White Balance, and using a polarizer.

I've found that while the scene may look pretty even the change in the position of the sun as you move your camera will change the exposure in subsequent images. I keep an eye on the meter to see what it is doing even though you may be shooting in M. Doug also raises some very good points.

It's the lens. UWA angles lenses diffract light differently than most peopel expect and this is REALLY noticeable with the Sigma 15mm fisheye which almost looks like a polarizer is used on it.

All my panos are done @70mm in portrait mode. Skies are always dead on. Usually 25 shots for 180 degrees.

I think cosworth has a point, though your pano software ought to be able to blend the skies to avoid visible seams.

But remember also that, as well as having manual exposure settings, you must have manually set white balance (as Doug Pardee points out) and you must ensure that your RAW converter doesn't apply any "automatic" adjustments to the photos as it does the conversion.

I did use a polarizer, but was almost certain i had daylight set on the white balance not auto. Only time i really use auto white balance is when i take some shots of the moon.

Im going to go back and try this again tomorrow if its nice out again but will bring the tripod with me.

Start from the left and go to the right.

Use Manual Focus.

Manual settings.

Manual WB.

Overlap by 33%

sando thanks. I'll try that next time, try out the grey card if its nice out.