As I waited for the sun to cast it's golden glow, I decided that the best way to photograph the skyline was to make a panoramic image. The first decision I had to make was which lens I was going to use. I could use a wide angle and take a few shots, or I could use a telephoto lens, and take many more shots to get the same area. I chose to use my Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS USM lens so that I would be able to see the individual office windows in the buildings when the image is enlarged. (If there were any people in the windows, I would have been able to see them).
Here is how I take photographs for panoramas.
1. Use a tripod.
2. Make sure tripod is level. I have two centering bubbles on my tripod. One on the base, and the other on the tripod mount. This is important because as you rotate the camera, if it is not level, your horizon won't be level, so you will start out with the horizon in the middle, or bottom third, but then as you rotate the camera you will end up shooting just the sky because the horizon will be too low.
3. Look at the exposure meter in the camera at several points along your panorama. Determine the average Shutter Speed and the average Aperture settings.
4. Set the camera's mode to Manual, and use the average settings from above. You want to use the Manual mode so that the settings won't change as you move the camera from dark to light in your panning. You can get away with the settings changing, but most time not - you'll be able to see a change in the sky from dark to light to dark, etc.
5. Take a series of photographs, making sure that you overlap each shot by at least a third of the frame.
6. Use the Merge program in Photoshop (or similar program) to 'stitch' the images together.
Here is the finished product.
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