Shooting Panoramas with Monopod?

I know very little about shooting panoramas. In fact, I've only shot panoramas on my iPhone. Here's my question:

I'm going to Israel this year and want to shoot some panoramas. I have a Canon rebel t1i. I can't afford to bring a tripod, because I need something compact and inexpensive that can fit in my side bag. I find that Velbon's ultrastick L50 fits this description. But now the question remains, can a monopod (with a rotating head) take decent panoramas?

Yes, but you need photoshop skills as well to put it together. If you google "Scott Kelby panorama" you can find some tricks to doing it. Essentially you have to take a number of shots and then combine them. It takes some time and requires some skill, but it can be done.

You don't even need a monopod.

All you need to do is shoot a series of overlapping images and then put them together in the computer. I use software from Arcsoft to do it, but there are a lot of programs that can make them.

Here are two panoramas I shot with multiple frames hand held while sailing (open the links, the thumbnails may not be correct):

Just make sure that you shoot in manual exposure and shoot a bit wider (top and bottom) than you want for your final shot. If you shoot in any automatic exposure, you will have a tough time blending the edges of the frames, and shooting taller images than you need allows you to crop in case you need to.

You don't really need a monopod, though it may help to keep the camera at a constant level. You can just hold the camera and take a succession of photos as you turn to the right (or left). All you need to do is have a decent overlap so you need to look for easy landmarks to line up the photos. Try to avoid too wide an angle (too short a focal length) or the photos won't overlap very well.

Example linked. Just standing in the same spot and turning and taking photos.

You just have to shoot overlapping images.

Here is a sample of three overlapping images shot hand held.html? Sort=6&o=13

Photoshop has a tool for merging overlapping images to create a panoramic shot.

You will not need a rotating head because the monopod will rotate were it touches the ground. You will figure this out when you actually use the monopod.

Here is a a shot using a monopod.

.html? Sort=6&o=18

The monopod was used to hold the 300 mm f/2.8 lens and camera and take the strain off the photographer (me) during the whole football game.

Practice shooting panoramic shots using your monopod long before you take you trip to Israel.

If you want the highest resolution images, shoot in RAW and use Lightroom 5 process them

You can use a monopod. It's best to support the monopod against something like a fence rail or table top to minimize lateral movement.

I usually do panos free hand. To minimize parallax issues, I use one of my fingers as a pivot point under the lens. If there's a fence, boulder, or table handy, I'll rest my elbow on the surface. If your subject is far away, then no special pivoting techniques are required.

An excellent program for creating panos is Hugin. The program is free and outputs excellent results.

Yes, you can use it. It will depend now on how steady your hands are.