Have you ever been enthralled with a spectacular panorama image and wondered if you had the necessary gear and skills to do this yourself? The answer is “yes,” and in the quick video below you’ll learn everything necessary for shooting panos to perfection.

Instructor Adrian Caleanu is a professional Canadian landscape photographer whose behind-the-scenes tutorials from awesome locations are designed to help other outdoor shooters discover the world and elevate their skills “one photo at a time.” He kicks off today’s episode with this definition, “A panorama is a wide-angle image created by stitching together multiple overlapping photos to capture a scene beyond the typical field of view possible with a single lens.

Caleanu’s subject is an expansive vista with a blanket of impressive clouds above snow-capped mountains looming in the distance. He can’t create the composition he desires in a single shot but watch the breathtaking perspective he achieves by using the panorama technique described in the next nine minutes.

The first step is securing the camera and capturing a small selection of images that are carefully merged later during post processing. Caleanu waits patiently until the soft light of Blue Hour bathes the scene, and four carefully aligned shots are all takes. His initial camera settings are f/5, 1/30, and ISO 100 while shooting in Live View mode for reasons he explains.

After shooting the first photo he pans to the right for the next frame while explaining that “when panning to the right you have to carefully overlap each subsequent shot by one third.” He then makes his second, third, and final images using the same technique. As he says, “for me it’s not a question of how many frames I want, but rather how many frames are required to capture the entire mountain range before me.”

Caleanu says he prefers to slightly underexpose his images because “it’s away easy to bring up the shadows but you can’t bring down highlights if they’re blown out and devoid of details.”  He creates a second panorama by shifting his view to a nearby airport with plane moving across the runway.

You’ll agree that this technique is quite simple, as are the other tips that you’ll find on Caleanu’s instructional YouTube channel that are just waiting for you to take a look.

Be sure not to miss the tutorial we featured earlier with a Danish outdoor shooter who provides 10 straightforward tips for capturing fantastic photographs of spring flowers with simple gear.

Color grading may seem like a daunting task, especially if you’re an inexperienced Lightroom user. But it’s important to achieve accurate tones because unnatural colors can quickly kill an otherwise great shot.

Instructor James Feaver puts it like this: “if you’re not happy with your colors or you just think they look ugly it usually comes down to one reason: White Balance.” In this quick explainer he demonstrates a “quick trick” for getting far better White Balance in Lightroom. Best yet, you can take advantage of Feaver’s simple tips whether you’re shooting landscapes, nature photos, macro imagery, and  even environmental portraits.

Feaver’s demonstration photo is a perfectly composed and properly exposed image of a street scene after dark. A vivid red double-decker bus draws you into the scene that’s super impactful because of illuminated windows, streetlamps, and reflections surrounding the main subject. So what’s the problem: funky colors that don’t appear as they did through viewfinder.

You may be surprised to learn that this image has already been edited in Lightroom. The result is slightly better than the original file, but let’s face it, it still isn’t good. That’s because Feaver’s preliminary enhancements didn’t include adjusting White Balance. He intentionally skipped this step so he could demonstrate the concept and walk you through the simple procedure in the next five minutes.

The process occurs in Lightroom’s Develop panel by expanding the Basics dropdown menu that includes several easy-to-use sliders with White Balance tools grouped into three sections. There’s the Eyedropper tool, the two main sliders, as well as your Presets.

Feaver begins with the oft-ignored White Balance Presets. There are several available and Feaver notes how they mirror the ones inside your camera, namely Daylight, Cloudy, Shade, Tungsten, and the like. Keep in mind that once you make a choice, say Cloudy, “your camera will always use the Cloudy setting until it’s changed. The good news when you forget (and the purpose of this lesson), is that you can rehabilitate poor color tones by following Feaver’s instructions, after which you’ll want to add this trick to your everyday workflow.

There’s much more to learn on the London-based Photo Feaver YouTube channel, so be sure to take a look.

And on a related note, be sure to watch the tutorial we featured with another post-processing expert who demonstrates why you should use Adobe’s amazing AI-based Adaptive Color Profile as the first-step in processing your photographs.