In 2020, in the first week of the pandemic lockdown, I was sick with Covid, and my partner Magda, said she felt like she was pregnant. She went out to Tesco, as I lay on the couch, got a pregnancy test and soon we found out we were going to be parents.

At the time, I wanted to change the way I was shooting and start shooting portraits. I thought photos of Magda throughout her pregnancy would be a great start. We were in lockdown throughout most of the year, so we had plenty of time. Learn how to shoot film, work with square format and start to develop my understanding of a slower approach to taking photos.

I wanted to work on a more considered set of photos, less snapshots and more arranged. Arranging the photos instead of finding them. I had never worked like this, so it was a real change in approach. I also wanted to consider light more and play with natural light in the different shots.

This was a real personal project for me and feel like, in the future, it will give us a look back to this time, place and memories. This project shows Magda as she became visibly pregnant, although in the early photos you can’t see any physical signs, its was always on our minds.

I’ve made a book of these photos since I wanted all of these images to live in the real world and be something. These photos really want to be printed and I feel like the book became what this body of work needed to become.

In the end, our beautiful beautiful daughter, Isabel was born and our lifes changed beyond anything I could imagine.

Below are a selection of photos using the Noblex 135 Panoramic camera. I shot a few different types of film; Ektar, Fujifilm Supreme Xtra 400 and Lomo Color Negative 800. I think these are some of the most successful panos to date with the film camera.

I also scanned them all in my self which took a while...

Kodak Ektar 100 Film

I tried out Ektar 100 on this trip as I had read that it is a very saturated film and was good for sunrises. I was heading towards good weather and sun. I was not dissapointed. This film seems to have really captured a light quality that I’ve not managed to get on digital. The shots feel sunny and warm and there is a brightness and dynamic range that you would struggle to get in all but the top end digital cameras.

What do you think?

Below is a selection of the 4 rolls of film I shot.

So, on to the shots!

Portra 160

This is the first roll of Portra I’ve shot and I’m quite happy with how the film handled the colour! It is quite naturalistic but its also got a quality that I don’t think you see in digital. You hardly get any situations where you get clipping of highlights, all tones are smooth and soft and the tonality is very clean and realistic. I’m going to keep testing different kinds of film here but I’m interested in coming back to shoot more of this film and getting to know it better.

The grain is quite fine on this film which adds to the sharpness in the shots but the grain doesn’t distract from the images, I think.

At the moment, I do prefer a more stylised look when shooting film and am going to keep on shooting different film types to keep on expanding my understanding of film types. I think I need to choose the film I’m using based on what I’m shooting so I’ll come back to Portra at a later date.

I first stopped off at the boats that get stranded on the gravel along the river. There were some Korean women collecting some shellfish in the pools there.

I WOULD RECOMMEND TO CLICK ON THE PHOTOS BELOW TO SEE THEM AS LARGE AS POSSIBLE

Scanning Film

This is also the first roll of film I’ve scanned myself. It has taken a lot of reading, research and testing but I think I’ve got there.

I’ve decided to do it myself so I’ve got control of the process and I don’t need to rely on someone elses interpretation of how my images should be scanned. Its going to take a bit of time to really understand this process and I might write up a blogpost about it in the future, once I have more experience.

After the river and the beach, I headed along to the House boats that are moored in the sand. There are a lot of very interestingly designed boats there. A lot of artists have moved into these boats and have decorated them uniquely. I think, each boat clearly shows a lot of the character of the resident on board. This is a fascinating spot and I think I’ll have to revisit in the future.

So, I’ve also bought a Noblex 135 panoramic camera. I’ve bought a few cameras recently but the cost of them all are still well within the price of the digital camera I was looking at before I started with this whole panoramic camera thing. Sounds like a lame justification when I write it!

Anyway… So, I bought this camera off a very nice guy on Ebay, and the camera works great! Very pleased with the results so far.

The Camera

It is a beast of a camera! Much bigger than the Horizon panoramic cameras and a real weight to carry around.

It has a wider aspect than the Horizon cameras (the negative is 24*66mm compared to the Horizons 24*58mm) and I think it makes a difference. Both in the shooting and in the final image. All of the images feel more like panoramas than just wider photos, like some of the other panoramic cameras I’ve been using.

From a shooting point of view, it is very hard for me to see the image as a whole when I look through the viewfinder. I need to look through then peer into the corners of the viewfinder to check what is there. I think it might be easier if I don’t wear glasses, since they get in the way of seeing into the viewfinder so may have to experiment. Other than this problem, the viewfinder is awesome and I feel like it makes everything look better when I look through it. It is really huge and you can totally see what you are shooting.

The camera is battery driven, unlike the other panoramic cameras I’ve used but this is less of a deal for me that I initially thought.

A strange quirk of the camera is setting the aperture on the front drum where the lens is housed. I need to remember that it is there and what it is set to, all the time.

The Photos

The camera is manual everything, so I’m happy with the images below in terms of exposure. I was using the Sunny 16 rule and, in general, it worked out in most of the shots.

I still find it hard to previsualise my frame with the camera perspective so wide, so that is something I need to work on.

There seems to be situations where the curved horizon works well and others where it is distracting. It definitely helps if the horizon is not higher on one side of the frame than the other. Sometimes it works to make a feature out of it but don’t want to turn it into a gimmick. Going to have to learn what works and what doesn’t.

Overall, so far, I’ve loved shooting with this camera. It is unusual, quirky, tricky and a lot of fun!

Shooting at the festival

The festival was really fun, everyone was friendly and I felt really relaxed shooting there. The sheer amount of chaos around me made it hard to find compositions that would work, and I think that shows in some of the photos. But overall I’m pleased with what I got from the place.

First Roll

I WOULD RECOMMEND TO CLICK ON THE PHOTOS BELOW TO SEE THEM AS LARGE AS POSSIBLE

So, I’ve just been away to Crete for a couple of weeks, so hopefully will get those photos up in the near future!

I thought I’d write up a little description about what I think of the photo along with each shot. This was quite helpful for analysing the shot and will hopefully help me to learn how to work this camera faster.

The scanning shop scanned the film edges and thought I’d keep them on. What do you think? is it distracting from the photos?

The scans are also quite different in feel from the previous posts batch in terms of colour. Not too sure if they were handled differently when scanned. Or that including the negative sprocket holes affected the colour correction accuracy when scanning, but I still feel that the colours are nice.

Overall, I’m pleased with these shots and feel like I’m starting to understand how to shoot with this panoramic format. Some of the shots are sloping a bit too much in one direction or the other but I really need to find the sweet spot, since I don’t think I need the horizon perfectly flat in each shot either.

I really need to find subject matter that works in a panoramic frame. I’m shooting about 120 degrees, I think, but it doesn’t come across as quite so wide in the images.

Any feedback welcome!

Shot in Katowice, I thought that this environment would work with panoramic photography, but I think I never got in close enough. I should have put the fountain in the middle between the two buildings or just tried to balance out the weight between the left and right of the photo a bit more.

Looking at this photo, I’ve realised that the viewfinder may not be showing the entire shooting frame. I think I had the top of the statue almost against the top of the frame and the group of people at the bottom. I think I could have made more of a feature of the background buildings.

The whole image is too tilted up to the left of the frame, which doesn’t look great.

I like the angular nature of all of the elements in this shot. I’m getting a bit of light leaking in this one, which I’ve not seen in this camera. The horizon slopes a bit to the right, so I’ll need to start paying attention to the spirit level a bit more in the future.

The old mine in Katovice works in the frame but is a bit boring. Would be better with some people on the path but I would probably need to wait a long time for that to happen!

I like the mood of this shot. I couldn’t expose for any longer and its still a bit dark but at least it proves that I can shoot in-doors with iso800 film. Shot in an old Hotel in Tychy, Poland.

I like the composition here but could be a bit closer. Will need to really do a test to see how much extra you get around the shot with this camera.

I like how the boats are framed between the trees and also like the relaxed guy there.

Shot in a cafe, really trying to understand how the camera will work indoors, with some outside light.

Here’s my family against beach huts in brighton. kind of fun shot!

In the i360, in Brighton. The space is really suitable for panos. Think the interior is probably better for photos than the views.

Every 20 frames, I seem to get this problem. Not sure what it could be.

Another shot in i360 which works nicely for the pano format.

I quite like this one. Would be nice to have less of the pavement but I think the framing works. I like that you are looking down both streets. Will need to try that again.

This shot is into an office at night. Was really testing if the camera could work with the lighting.

Another shot into a random store on the way through London. Unusual display which came out ok in the shot.

Another interior test shot with Magda having a cuppa. A bit under exposed but still interesting. Maybe the window is a bit distracting.

Street market in Brighton. Should have made more of a feature of the sellers. I like how the houses frame the photo.

Grafitti wall in Brighton with Magda enjoying the sun. Closer, closer, closer. Not too sure if I had the Oakley sign in the shot when I framed it.

Some old style huts on Brighton beach. I like the mood and the feeling of the weather in this photo. Feels a bit cold and windy, which it was. Placement of the people could be better. Something to try again in the future.

I also got the snazzy case for free . . . .

The previous blogpost photos were shot on the Horizont. The Horizont is a much more pleasing looking camera but I ended up with a lot of light leaking around the photos. I’ve got it in to repair, so luckily I bought this other one….

I wasn’t too hopeful for this camera since it was a lot cheaper than the Horizont but as you can see, it seemed to perform much better!

The photos are pretty sharp, there is very little light leaking and I managed to get the whole roll out of the camera without problems this time.

I love the curved lines that these cameras produce, although its not everyones cup of tea. Look at that horizon!

The Film

I was shooting Lomography Colour Negative 800, so if you have a look, there is a lot of grain in the photos. I quite like the grain but it would also be interesting to test out the Lomo 100 to take photos that are a bit more clean.

I love the color of this film. It shifts the color prefectly in different lighting conditions and produces really pleasing results. It also does pretty well in the highlights by not blowing out details as much as I expected. It is a nice contrast to the previous roll I shot on the Horizont which was more muted.

I need to shoot iso 100 film to really give it a test, so will probably get some portra 160 the next time I load it up, but the results are pretty sharp considering.

Take Aways

I think I need to get closer to subjects. This is really important but since it is a very wide angle lens I need to always keep this in my mind.

I also need to work with depth in the shot, to get more foreground, midground and background elements.

You can see that I never wound on the film for the first photo correctly, which is a bit of a bummer since it would have been a better photo than the second one.

At sunset, I probably need to watch my shadow in the photo.

I have learned that you simply can’t shoot in a pub at night….

Also, it looks like I shot about 10 photos in the second to last shot! Not too sure how that shot has so many different bits, but it definitely had something to do with the fact that I reached the end of the film with my last shot.

A lot of my photos here are out with family and friends, so i fancy getting into London for the day to do a bit of street photography with this machine.

So, below are the rest of my shots from this film. I think the two above are the best of the bunch but what do you think?

Its an old Russian camera and I think this one was made in 1976.

Why?

I love panoramic images! I think the format of panoramic images creates interesting and diverse photos with a range of moments throughout the frame. Its also closer to how we see. I love the work of Jens Olaf Lasthein and also the landscape work of Colin Prior.

I find it frustrating when you get a nice panoramic shot with a digital camera (using the in-camera stitching) and someone or something is cut in half because it moved. These cameras remove that issue! I can shoot panos with many people moving around with less problems (check out some of my digital panoramic work in the site menu).

I like to get photos in-camera so I like thinking in panoramic shots and composing for that type of shot, not just stitching loads of photos in photoshop or cropping off the top and bottom of a wide-angle frame and hoping for the best.

The camera is also great looking piece of kit!

The Camera

This is quite a fun camera to use. When you are looking for photos, you need to be thinking in the panoramic format and what would work for the type of shots the camera makes. This will take a bit of time to get used to, but could end up with more interesting images. It is quite quirky and unusual and creates a distinctive look as it bends all straight lines in the image. I actually find this quite pleasing and organic.

It is hard to compose the shots with such a wide viewfinder. You kind of need to look around the inside of the finder and check the edges before you take the shot, since you can’t really see the whole image at once. The lens on the camera is 28mm as well, so I will need to learn to get closer to the action.

You attach a handle to the camera (shown on the right in the above image) to the base, for stability and to keep your fingers out of the way of the camera’s wide view. The drum rotates on the front of the camera that houses the lens, when you press the shutter.

This camera has no focus control and focuses to infinity at all times. This is due to the the lens being inside the central drum in the camera. So, to focus, you just need to contol the aperture. At f16 the camera focuses to 1m so I was trying to keep it as close to f16 as possible. The images were not as sharp as I would have liked but that could be down to a number of factors.

I got a lot of puzzled looks as I was out and about with this contraption!

Film photography

This roll was Kodak Pro Image 100. I think I prefer stronger tones, so will probably try using some Lomography colour negative film the next time or Fujifilm Superia Extra 400.

I checked exposure with an app on my phone and it seemed to get it pretty well bang on in most occasions. I’ll need to learn how to offset the exposure based on what is in front of me, since a few shots could have been underexposed a stop or two.

Film sticking

I lost the first 4 or 5 photos from the roll because the film stuck in the camera as I was rewinding it back into the spool. I’m not sure if this was the fault of the camera or because I loaded it incorrectly, but I rewound the film to a point and the film wouldn’t rewind any more. So, I had to open the back and push the film around until I could keep rewinding it.

I’ve since bought a super cheap roll of film and have tested out rewinding with less problems. Who knows what happened!

Light Leaking

The main issue with most of the photos I shot was the light leaking in the outdoor shots. I’m not sure if light leaking is coming in through the lens and the shutter is just not shutting correctly or if it is coming in through the edge of the drum. I’ll have to put it in for a service to see if they can sort it at the shop.

Overall, this camera is a lot of fun to shoot with and if I can get the light leak fixed, hope to keep shooting panos with this machine.

Here are the rest of the photos that made it out of the camera, including the last one, which was partially exposed when I opened the back.

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But now I’ve started shooting again. I’ve picked up my Lubitel 2 camera that I spotted in a window of a shop in Turkey a few years ago, covered in dust. Its an original camera, not one of the new Lomography versions that are out there now so I get a lot of light leaking and banding in the photos. But I love it! It all adds to the texture.

Shooting manual was a total gamble and I’ve been guessing settings the whole time. It uses 120 film and I’ve not really figured out how to shoot in low light conditions yet but its all good.

I’ve included all of my photos that I’ve shot below and not adjusted anything, so you can have a look and see all my bad shots.

I’m really just happy to try and see what happens now!

Here's a video from my trip around India a few years ago!   I dug out the footage and did a quick edit today.   Gives a feel of a few of the places I ended up.   

Nepal Photos

Nepal is steeped in culture and religion.   It is tough but welcoming.   It is a dangerous place with freak storms, massive landscapes and dangerous festivals.   The people are welcoming and friendly.   The food is simple and tasty.   It is a place with endless paths, millions of steps and soaring mountains.

I can't go into detail about the entire trip around Nepal since I would need to write a book.   Suffice to say it was an experience.  

We went to the birthplace of the Buddah in the town of Lumbini, where pilgrims travel from around the world.   We travelled up into the mountains to the town of Tansen, where we went on a trek, quite unprepared and got lost for 11 hours.   We saw a goat being sacrificed in a temple on the summit of a mountain.   We travelled to Chitwan National Park where we went out into the jungle to see Rhinos and ended up getting plunged into darkness in the most collosal lightning storm I've ever seen.   We stayed in Kathmandu on and off for the 2 months and enjoyed the chaos of the city and the Buffalo momo's.   We witnessed the Nepali New Year at the Bisket Jatra festival where men pulled massive tree trunks into the air with ropes.   We watched as the towns people pulled a huge chariot through the street, killing 4 people over the course of the 8 day festival.   We went on a 9 day, self navigated trek into the Annapurna mountains, up to about 12,000 feet and almost got to Annapurna base camp.   We watched the sunrise over the Himalaya's every morning at 5 before going on 7 hour walking treks.   We went on another trek for 8 days into the Helambu areas of Nepal, to visit remote Buddhist villages and to see the Langtang mountains.   We went to many buddhist monasteries all over the country.   We walked along ridges in the mountains with the clouds below us.   We seen strikes and protests in the streets of Kathmandu.   We met hundreds of people from the cities and the countryside all over Nepal with a different outlook on life from the West.

That's a bit of a rush through events, but if you want to hear about it or fancy going yourself, get me in the pub with a pint and I'll tell you all about it.   If you have ever wanted to see the Himalaya's, go for it.   Its amazing.

Next gallery will be some panoramas from Nepal. 

Landscapes of India

These photos are all in-camera panoramas that shows the diverse landscapes of India.

Feels like India

Here are a few interesting or quirky things I seen on my travels.

Faces of ​India - Gallery

Finally I've got my first collection of photos from my trip to Asia up and on my website.   This is a collection of photos of some of the people I met across India.

After spending 4 months travelling and talking to hundreds of people across the country, generalisations do not work.   India is a complex country with over 2000 years of history that feeds into modern life.   This creates a mindset that would take years to decipher and creates paradoxes that confound.   I think that any judgements or simplification would be wrong.

All I know is that I want to go back to meet more of the people, be overwhelmed by the culture, amazed by everyday moments and try to learn more about this amazing place.   It is rare to find a country so unique as India in the modern world.

So, more India galleries to come and more of the other countries we visited as well...​

I've just completed a band photoshoot in London for 'The Energy Practice'.   One of my friends Andy is in the band and he needed some promo shots so he gave me a shout.

We shot mainly around Finsbury Park after Colin, on of the band members, had a look around for locations.   It was freezing but we still had a bit of a laugh.​

It was a fun experience and ​after my initial nerves passed, I learn't a lot.   Next time I think that I need to find the locations myself so that I can be a bit more prepared and have an idea what I'm going to shoot before we get there.   On the other hand, an adaptive, free form method keeps it interesting in a way that street photography works. The other part is I need to be able to direct people in a clearer way.

​Cheers guys, was interesting!

For more about 'The Energy Practice'​ go to their Facebook page.

Photo - Somewhere in Goa, the only Christian state in India

​10 months travelling around the world!   I've not really posted anything about it on this blog since I've got back!​

Why?​

Well, I've been thinking about it and I really can't put the trip into words.   I started writing and what came out was cliches.   In India I wrote whole blogposts and at the end I felt like it had all been written before.​   I was saying nothing new and it was all quite generic compared to the experience.   I've tried writing since I got back, but to no avail.

I experienced so much while being away that its really impossible to get it across.​   We travelled so far and experienced so much that when I got back and people asked me 'How was the trip?', I had no words for them.   Do I say it was amazing?   Unbelievable?   Do I go into individual stories of what happened in different places?   Do I try to sum up the experience in a paragraph or two?   Do I speak about politics and corruption?   Or talk about religion and beliefs.   Do I tell them a timeline of events from the start, until they glaze over?   In the end, I really just didn't say very much.   I still haven't spoken about it with many people.

Maybe I'm just not a good enough writer.   Maybe the experience was so vast that there's no way to sum it up.​

And my photos?   Its just impossible really.   They are a glimpse.   Frozen moments that have been plucked out of the chaos.   Some cliched, some slightly more unique.   I've been looking at them for so long now, trying to piece them together to turn them into something that describes the experience.   But they can't.   I needed to realise that they can't get across the feel of the place.   But they are what they are.   I need to stop trying to reach an impossible goal and just get them out into the world.

So, I'm back in the UK for a good 6 months now and am starting to get a bit of perspective on the whole thing.   I really can't put it into words but I don't need to!   Its an experience that will stay with me for the rest of my life and maybe that's enough.

"What's your name?"

"Where'd you come from?"

In 2012 I went travelling for 8 months around India, Nepal and China.  

I travelled on local transport for thousands of miles, walked for hundreds, ate the local food and lived as deep in these countries as I could.   I visited around 60 places, both the massive cities and the tiny towns.   I went to the tourist attractions and got off the beaten path.

The project I've come back with is of both the people and the landscapes of these countries.   These two aspects are both integral to the character of the countries but inform different aspects of the experience.  

​The photos above are a small selection from the start of the trip, to give a taste.   I'm working on an offline project at the moment to get these photos into the world and on to paper.

More to come...​

​

We travelled through the 3 countries marked on the map over 10 months.   We spent 4 months in India, 2 months in Nepal then 2 months in China.   We also stopped off in Turkey, Bulgaria and Poland on our way home.

The markers are places we stayed for one night or more.   The blue lines are bus journeys, the red is buses and the yellow is flights.

Its been a mad trip and a lot of fun!

Street Photography Gallery

I love the process of shooting on the street.   Its always a balance how close you get to people, how obvious you make it that you are taking someones photo and it is a continual hunt to find interesting moments that last for a millisecond then are gone.   

The process is an interesting one, which normally just gives you 1 photo each day you spend walking around.   Other days a few moments will just appear from nowhere.   Thats a great feeling when these things just work!   So, go and have a look at the gallery and tell me what you think...

Each time I go to Poland, I think that I get a better idea and feel for the country.   It really has a distinct flavour thats different from anywhere else.   I think I'm starting to understand this and hope I get this across in the photos.

Click here to go to the gallery

The panorama feature of the x100 is often overlooked as a gimmick but I would say that it is a fantastic feature which can easily be used in certain situations.   All of the panoramas I shot in this post and of Scotland are unedited and uncropped.

The camera allows you to shoot a panorama by rotating the camera around a predefined angle.   The camera grabs slices of the view and stitches them together into one image.   It also works out the distortion and instantly shows you a finished panorama!   I always shoot handheld and with a bit of practice you can produce seamless panoramas in seconds.

Problems 

Now obviously with this method there are a few problems.   First, if there is any moving objects in the scene, the camera can slice these up, make objects partly disappear or show multiple versions of the object.   Secondly since you are moving the camera, any significantly wrong movements can introduce errors in the image, where the image slices.   With a bit of practice you can reduce errors in both situations and produce quality results.

Advantages

So, many people may ask, why shoot a panorama in this way when you could shoot the old way of taking multiple photos and stitch them together in photoshop?   There are a few advantages.  
First is immediacy.   Straight away you will know if your shot is working or not, you can adjust your positions and reshoot.   
Secondly, you start to learn the 120 degree frame and you will get better at shooting panos.   Due to repeated practice at shooting panos, you can start seeing the frame and learn to compose your shots faster and will also learn how the shot will distort in the frame.   Because it produces faster output and feedback you can also get better at panoramas faster.
Third, you don't need to stitch in photoshop.   Now, the tools to stitch are quite easy nowadays.   You can just point photoshop and a bunch of photos and they will stitch together well.   But this still takes a lot of time if you want to shoot a lot of panoramas.   If you have shot hundreds of panoramas over the course of a holiday, it will take ages to stitch them together.   In the past, I've wasted time stitching badly composed shots together.   If you wanted to stitch in Photoshop you could actually use the pano mode to plan and set your composition, then take your shots to stitch together once you are happy. 
Finally, you can play with panoramas!   I've shot quite a few panoramas in places that I don't know if a pano will work.   You can use the function in many situations that you never considered doing a pano shot, and if it doesn't work, no problem, you've wasted no time!

Settings

When shooting in panoramic mode, first find a view that you think will work as a pano.   By putting the camera to your eye and rotating around a point, you can start planning out the panorama and choosing focal points etc.   By using the same angle range for the pano, you can soon start to compose before you press the button by imagining the frame size in your head.
I set all of my panos to the same angle of 120 degrees.   This gives a viewable frame that works as a photo.    I think that 180 degrees is simply too long and thin to be useable.      It is also very hard to control subject matter in such a long, thin panorama.
Next, depending on the subject, I choose either a vertical or horizontal format for the image.   You need to make the call if the scene in front of you will work better horizontal or vertical.   If shooting vertical you often need to have interesting stuff in the frame from above the horizon to directly in front of your feet, for the shot to work.   Also, you can sometimes end up shooting your own feet, so you might want to put on your best shoes!
The next decision is what direction to shoot the pano in.   By default the camera is set up to shoot left to right, but in some cases you will want to change this.   I want to have strong framing in the panorama in at least one side, whereas the other side can run longer.   So, I would choose to start the frame from the side with the strongest feature then run long on the other side.    Another situation is if you want to position a key feature at a specific position in the frame.   By keeping the position of the feature closer to the side you start from, you have more chance of positioning the feature where you want.

Exposure and Focus

So, now you are about ready to shoot.   The next decision is your focus and exposure.  
Due to the nature of panoramas, you will probably want to focus to infinity but that is not necessarily the case.   You can lock the focus on an part of the scene with a half press then move to the start of the pano that you are shooting.   I like to set focus lock up on the AF-L button so I can control focus separately to exposure.
The other consideration which I've found much more important is getting the exposure right.   Due to the fact that the panorama will be stored as a jpg, you will not have the convenience of a RAW files dynamic range, so you really need to get it right in-camera.   Since the panorama mode automatically changes to EVF mode, you can pretty much see your exposure in the viewfinder.   In bright light, I often cover the viewfinder and around my eye with my left hand to block out external light, and make sure that the exposure is correct.   Since the exposure is going to be the same throughout the whole panorama, you really need to decide on what you want to show in the shot and I normally set the exposure on the main point of focus in the shot I'm taking.   Just point to the camera at whatever part of the panorama you want to set the exposure for, change the exposure compensation to really nail it, then half press the shutter.   This will lock the exposure and you can then return the camera to the start of the panorama that you want to shoot.

Stance

So, poised and ready with the camera set up, you now want to ready yourself for shooting the pano.   As I said previously, I never use a tripod, so this adds a few complications.   I have found, to shoot handheld, its best to follow a set of practices.   First, get your feet together on a relatively flat piece of ground.   Putting your feet together allows you to turn your body through the whole panorama easier and being on flat ground stops you falling over!    
I then find a point roughly in the middle of the panorama and I point my feet towards that point.   This is key to creating a level pano.   If your stance is pointing at the start of the panorama, by the end your body will be twisted up and your horizon line will be lost, causing the photo to break into slices.
So, point your feet at the middle of the shot, turn your body to the start of the panorama and push in the shutter. 

Shooting

The panorama will then start taking.   Now, at this point you need to turn the camera steadily and keep the horizon in the same position throughout the shot.   One problem with doing this is the yellow horizon line and the cross that tracks your offset from the horizon.   I have found that this feature is best ignored.   There is about a second delay in the crosses position which means that any shift you compensate for will be probably inaccurate, making you overshoot the compensation.   So, if you see it diverging from the line, its best to just ignore it and concentrate on keeping the camera at what you think is the best horizon position.   If you do start trying to compensate for the cross, I've found that my panorama gets increasingly erratic.
When shooting the 120 degree panorama, you will actually need to pan through a much larger range to about 180 degrees.   This is a bit frustrating since once you can visualise the frame, you will realise when your shot is complete but the camera will keep shooting.   But it is best to keep going or the camera can stop shooting the pano.
Too slow or fast and the camera will stop, so just try to keep a steady pace throughout the entire shot.

If you are brave enough to shoot a pano with moving things in your scene, good luck!   The only way I've found of mitigating problems in this situation is to move the camera as fast as possible so that the slices the camera takes are much bigger.   If you are shooting moving objects, its best if they are in the distance.   Also, you can get away with shooting moving objects more in a vertical pano, since most of the frame will be mainly ground or sky.   If you are shooting people you can obviously ask them to stay still through the course of the panorama.   Just be wary of strained smiles throughout the shot!

Checking

So, at this point, you should have an amazing pano shot, with very little breakup and and awesome composition!   But how do you know?   Maybe there is a tiny break in the middle of the shot that would take ages in post to fix.   So, when in playback mode and viewing your pano. you can press down on the control pad and the pano will scroll through for you to have a quick check.   This will allow you to see any flaws in the shot and any breaks.    If you need more time, you can push down again to stop the scroll-through and use left and right on the pad to pad back and fore through the shot.   If you need to get really close, you can obviously zoom in in the normal way.

Banding

So, that's about as much as I know, up to now.   I'm still working on figuring out why you sometimes get banding through some panoramas and I'm trying to figure out a way to avoid it as much as possible.    Shooting into the sun is a big cause of this problem.   I've got a feeling that at very high shutter speeds, there is discrepancies in the exposure, so trying to reduce the shutter speed would help.   I've not tried it yet, but in this situation the ND filter should help this.   Another thing that definitely causes some banding is flaring on the lens.   You can mitigate flaring a bit by setting higher apertures.   I'm also considering buying the lens hood for removing the flare banding from shots.

If you have any other tips, tricks or ideas about shooting panoramas, give me a shout because I would love to hear them.   Also, if you find this useful and shoot some nice shots, I would like to see them.   

Have a look at my best Scotland panoramas here