The lens was delivered this afternoon, and I messed with it some, just doing some handheld shots. I set everything to manual, but stupidly left the ISO on Auto, so I got some seriously overexposed shots. I'll do better when I use the tripod and set up exposure and focus more carefully. But I did enough to get a sense of what I was doing, and what I was doing wrong.
My first effort was three shots from my deck of woods behind the house using shifts, that Photoshop turned into the vertical panorama below. I didn't get the focus right on all of it, but it does show how the tall trees are not converging. The ground at the bottom of the picture is maybe 30 feet below the deck and the trees extend high above my head.
I would appreciate any suggestions for things to try over the next ten days other than traveling to Western national parks to imitate Ansel Adams.