To take pictures that can be easily made into attractive panoramas, it's important to bear in mind several things ranging from camera settings and techniques to post processing.
Use manual exposure for consistent image exposures. This avoids shifts in image brightness from the border of one image to the next which can cause bands in the finished panorama. Take your light readings in either program, aperture priority or shutter priority and transfer those to the manual setting. Use the best exposure for the parts of the panorama of most interest to you. Properly expose highlights to avoid overexposing any part of your panorama.
Turn off your flash or put the camera into a mode where the flash won't automatically engage. The different light and shadow patterns caused by a flash versus a non-flash illuminated shot can be hard to for programs to make into a panorama and may give mediocre results.
Switch to manual focus. (You can use autofocus to get the focus and then lock it in by switching to manual focus.) This prevents possible refocusing by the camera during the capture of individual shots in the panorama.
Don’t change the image quality-file size-resolution during your shots for the panorama. Most panorama software will balk when handling files of different sizes, etc. And even if manually stitched, the results won’t look as good.
Use a grid display with your camera’s viewer. Some models also have electronic level displays as well. These features will help to properly orient and overlap shots.
NOTE: not all cameras allow this kind of control with settings. Most DSLRs do let you change all these settings. Your results will vary depending on the degree of control you do have.
Don't zoom. Use one focal length to take all images in a panorama. It’s hard to stitch if the scale of the images is different. Also stay away from extreme wide-angle or fisheye lenses as these create images with lots of edge distortion, making stitching difficult.
Use overlap between frames or exposures. It should be enough for easy stitching. Try to use around 25% or more overlap as you move across the scene you’re photographing.
Use successive shots one after the other (in a sequence) for one panorama. Some software will more easily group and combine your pictures this way. Blank shots taken with the lens cap on can help with distinguishing sequences.
Leave extra space on top above the tallest parts of the scene for horizontal panoramas. You can also take two more shots than the panorama (one on both the right and left ends) for additional freedom in cropping. Another technique is to rotate the camera 90 degrees (portrait instead of landscape) to allow more space for tall subjects.
If you can’t use the AllView mount, then use a regular photo tripod. A stable tripod will allow the camera to take pictures all in one plane and from one center or node. Many tripods have bubble levels. Your tripod legs can be lengthened-shortened or it can be collapsed to use as a monopod in rough terrain where there is no level surface. And you can also more carefully control the degree of overlap in your series of shots.
If you shoot without a tripod, use all the techniques you can for steady shots: elbow bracing against your body, etc.
Post processing can help with trouble frames. Many photo editors will allow exposure, distortion, vignetting corrections etc. to fix what wasn’t done with the camera.
