Another Panorama

This one was taken at the same place as yesterday's photo, but before I left, I went to the edge of the water and hand held a series of shots to try to make into a panorama.

I basically followed a few simple rules when trying my first panoramic shots.
1. I obtained the ideal exposure for the most important part of the photo, the sunny area in this one, and set my camera to manual and took ALL of the shots in the series at that SAME exposure. That gives the best chance for the images to merge smoothly.
2. I overlapped each photo in the series by at least 1/3 of the frame. This was to give the Elements program the best chance of lining up the different photos correctly.
3. Try to keep the camera as level as possible. I used my tripod mostly, but today's panorama is composed of shots that were all hand-held.

There are attachments that you can buy and use on your tripod to make taking the series of shots for a panorama more exact, but they cost a lot of money, so I didn't buy one.

Since we're on the east coast, we drive over to the beachside (barrier island) and watch sunsets over the Indian River Lagoon.

You get better changes of success by using a tripod, but I also wanted to see how successful a handheld series would turn out.

My Nikon D70s has optional grid lines within the viewfinder which I leave on all the time. They're invisible to me now except when I make a point of noticing and using them.

For this shot, I used one of the lines to line with the far side water line in each photo.

It turned out pretty well.

I'll have to go back one day when it's time for sunset and get one with the outrageous colors that can result.