What's the best way to shoot a panorama?

[Levina]

The question came up in a thread on how to best shoot a panorama. It's a good question, or better: questions, as in plural, because:

How many images does it take to get a good panorama?
Is it better to take vertical shots when shooting the images?
How to deal with differently lit parts of a scene due to the angle towards the sun or clouds covering a part of the scene?
How to deal with moving parts, like clouds or trees moving in the wind?
Does the gear matter? Camera, lens?
Should the camera be set to manual mode?
Should the autofocus be turned off?
Is a tripod necessary?
And what is this thing called parallax?

And that's just the photography side. What about the post processing? Do we need special software to put images together?

In other words: what is the best way to shoot a panorama?

 

[Levina]

Here is a handheld panorama of one row. Taken during a mountain hike and I didn't want to bring too much gear. So this was shot using my R5 with the 24-240 zoom lens.
View attachment 2939

And here is one shot with a DJI Mini, shooting separate photos after which stitching was done in post on laptop:
View attachment 2940

Two more excellent panoramas. You do them really well, Jan.