Help with camera settings

The photo below is of a subway that has a story written on the wall. I would like to make a panoramic view of the complete wall.

I will use my K7 and Tamron 17-50 lens, I tried today but all the exposures are different so very hard to get the pano to look correct.

I am looking for suggestions as to settings etc.

The subway is about 7 feet wide. with a light in the middle, and daylight at both ends.

[IMG]http://i941.photobucket.com/albums/ad254/weldingblues/Thesubway.jpg[/IMG]

Not sure if this the correct place, so if not can a moderator move it for me please.

Regards

Go to (M)anual, take a suggested meter reading from midway through the tunnel via the green button, keep to it for the series of photos.

Panos only really work in manual mode or else you'll always have problems with the camera changing exposure on a shot-to-shot basis.

I agree with Hefty. I have done a lot of panoramas this year and unless you lock the exposure, then the camera changes the exposure from shot to shot making it more difficult to knit the pics together. I find PSE9 does it not-too-badly, and if you shoot RAW you can adjust the component pictures fairly easily after shooting but doing it in-camera is easiest I think.

The only thing I would add is that if you don't want to go into Manual mode, you can simply line up an exposure midway through the tunnel, then lock that exposure information in simply by pressing the 'AE-L' button on the top right of the rear of the K-7 body. When the exposure is locked there will be an asterisk in the info bar at the bottom of the viewfinder and as long as that is there the exposures should all be the same. Definitely worth having a play...

also set the white balance manually

Agree with all of the above and suggest using the camera vertically (I know that sounds perverse) and use a tripod making your overlaps as big as possible.

Exposure-wise this a tricky thing to do so I suggest taking a manual reading from the back of your hand in both the dark bit and the bright bit and splitting the difference.