Turn between frames
26.5°
7 frames
Level the head, meter once and lock it, then turn about 26.5° a frame. Exposure and white balance fixed across the set — a stitcher can hide a seam, not a changing sky.
Viewfinder
Drag the picture to turn the camera, or step through with the Frame slider. The shaded edges are the parts this frame shares with its neighbours. The post near the middle shows in two of them.
A panorama is several photos taken while the camera turns on the tripod, then stitched into one. Each frame sees only a slice of the view, so you turn a little between shots. Neighbouring frames have to repeat part of each other, because the stitching software lines them up by finding the same details in both.
Around the tripod
Seen from aboveEvery frame is a flat rectangle the camera points at. Turning the camera fans them round. Amber marks where neighbours overlap. Drag to turn the drawing; two fingers on a phone.
The finished strip
To scale, in degreesThe frames laid flat, as the stitcher sees them. The heavy outline is what you keep; amber is overlap. Turning the camera upright makes each frame narrower but the strip taller.
180° × 54° high dashed: level would be 38° high
Why near things won’t stitch
The camera sees from a spot inside the lens (amber). On a normal tripod, turning the camera swings that spot sideways, so close things jump between shots and won’t join up. A sliding rail moves the camera back until that spot sits over the turning point, and nothing jumps.
Shots 3 and 4: the post jumps about 148 px on a 24-megapixel photo. The hills don’t move.