What is shutter and aperture

     Shutter and aperture are camera devices that control light. Each affects how you make photographs differently. The differences can be used together to produce various results. Aperture controls depth of field, shutter speed can create blur, and other combinations can create great foreground detail and other interesting uses of focus.

Panorama Shooting

We often see some great panoramic pictures, such as a town panorama, a panorama of river shore extension, you will be surprised at how your own camera shot not such an effect. Stand-point high-point shoot it well and shoot the panoramic scene is very small. Narrow the focus or stand close to the point of making it but we can not accommodate the entire panoramic picture. Is your camera angle is not enough? Here's to introduce the techniques under the panoramic photo.

Before the advent of digital imaging technology, people get panoramic pictures there are two ways: using a dedicated panoramic shot rotation or professional division of the darkroom hand-stitching, no matter which method, ordinary fans are very difficult to do. APS cameras boast of "Panorama" is only the use of a large ultra-wide-angle lens view, strictly speaking, called the "cover photo on" more appropriate. Digital cameras and digital image processing technology make it easy to panoramic photography, as long as there is a digital camera and image processing software can run the computer such as ULEAD 360, anyone can try to make stunning panoramic view photo.

1. Point shooting

Stitching panoramic photos used to have certain requirements, such as exposure value is close to similar colors, followed by arrangement, slightly overlapping each other so when shooting some precautions.

2. Exposure parameters

Now more than a few digital cameras have a special panorama mode, in this mode, the camera will automatically shoot panoramic photos required to set exposure parameters, for there is no camera panorama feature to note the following:


a) metering the use of the average measured light, use manual exposure or exposure AE Lock Exposure locked parameters, the same set of panoramic photographs taken can not be changed during the aperture, speed, ISO, resolution and other settings;
b) using a fixed white balance use the automatic white balance may result in different Photo colors are inconsistent.

3. Focal length

Some people think that shooting panoramic photos as much as possible to make a large angle, it should be the shortest focal length (wide-angle lens or wide-angle zoom lens side), so require fewer pieces of mosaic pictures. In fact, this is a misunderstanding, when the province of trouble shooting when splicing trouble. Because the effect of a strong wide-angle lens perspective, particularly in the edge of the screen, prone to distortion, it is difficult to do when the seamless stitching. Therefore, deformation should be used when shooting in a smaller side-focus or telephoto shooting, and shooting half-way is advisable to change the focal length.

4. Shooting techniques

When shooting in accordance with a certain order (from left to right or from top to bottom, etc.), the best is to use tripod steady rotation, rotation axis perpendicular to note when shooting, point by point to pan around the shooting or when shooting should pay attention to the camera height, angle of the same generally do not use flash because flash light can cause far past dark. Adjacent shooting to have a certain overlap between the two photos, Canon, Sony and other brands of some of the digital camera panorama mode, there are auxiliary LCD display prompts. To avoid drastic changes in light conditions, the time (such as the line of cloud cover days) taken to avoid exposure between various pieces of the screen that much difference. Should be taken to avoid shooting occurred at the interface of moving objects (such as vehicles and pedestrians). While the choices are clearly marked location as a convergence point serves a number of automated software identification, splicing, we recommend choosing not clearly marked, easy to mix the site as a combination of ministries, such as water and the distant mountains, so not easy to see the seam stitching together .

After reading the above points, I think you make panoramic photo shooting skills in a certain understanding, as long as the more hands-on practice, you can shoot great panoramic photos.

Shooting Light @ night

Well, some tricks to make it easier:

USE:
- fast and good lense
- a tripod (I agree, a heavy one if possible)
- ƒ8 if you want a bit of DOF, ƒ11 if you can 
- 200 ISO is not bad at all if nothing moves

DO:
- lock the mirror
- If some items are moving and you want them sharp, increase ISO until you reach the right shutter speed but remember, the lower the ISO the higher the DR...
- If you want to merge many pics for HDR, nothing must move between shots unless you want some "special effects"
- Push gently on the shutter button

- use your camera's 2 sec shutter release,
- take your hands completely off the camera before the shutter trips, and
- use the viewfinder shutter if you have any light source behind you. It will prevent any light from flowing back through the eyepiece and contaminating the edges of the image.

DON'T:
- put your arm's weight on the camera body
- breath
- beleive in IS if you're using a tripod

good luck and enjoy the results!