I've always pictured myself as a middle-of-the-road kind of guy, but the Hobbitt says that in this case I may be taking things a bit too literally.

Nevertheless, she kept a watchful eye out while I shot this vertical panorama. (No artists were injured in the making of this picture.)

I've done this sort of shot before with a very wide angle lens, but the panorama approach offers some advantages. For one, you don't need a special lens, just a little practice with your regular camera.

With the wide angle lens, there was always a problem with depth of field, and trying to get sharp focus over the whole range of the picture. Another problem was trying to get the exposure correct when there was a wide range of lighting values between the near foreground and the distant background.

The panorama solves the first problem by refocusing for each separate picture that will be joined to make the final panorama. As for exposure, if you leave your camera on automatic, it will keep adjusting the exposure as you move the camera to each new position. The panorama software blends the whole works together to give a picture with tremendous depth of field and a uniform exposure.