Panorama Questions

[smoke665]

Developing an interest in panoramas, and have some questions on tripod accessories. My tripod has a rotating ball head with degree marks, so from the looks of it a simple nodal rail would work for 360 degree panos shot in landscape mode, but an "L" bracket would be required to rotate the camera to portrait mode.

1. What the advantages of shooting in portrait mode vs landscape other then the obvious greater height.
2. Using a simple nodal rail, is it feasible to use the center column of the tripod to raise or lower the camera to shoot multiple rows?

 

[480sparky]

I always shoot panos in portrait orientation. Allows for more FOV vertically.

Moving the center column won't gain you much.... plus you're changing the nodal point so your stitching might not work.

 

[smoke665]

Moving the center column won't gain you much.... plus you're changing the nodal point so your stitching might not work.

I'm confused I guess, because if the nodal point is set with the center column at "X height", how will changing the height of the column straight up or straight down change the nodal point, assuming the center column is kept vertical? Granted if the column leaned it might change?

 

[480sparky]

The nodal point needs to stay the same if you're considering raising the camera to increase the FOV vertically. Otherwise, your perspective changes, which may cause stitching issues. It's the same problem if you moved the camera horizontally during panning for a landscape, only turned 90°.

Imagine using a nodal point when taking images for a vertical pano.

 

[weepete]

Developing an interest in panoramas, and have some questions on tripod accessories. My tripod has a rotating ball head with degree marks, so from the looks of it a simple nodal rail would work for 360 degree panos shot in landscape mode, but an "L" bracket would be required to rotate the camera to portrait mode.

1. What the advantages of shooting in portrait mode vs landscape other then the obvious greater height.
2. Using a simple nodal rail, is it feasible to use the center column of the tripod to raise or lower the camera to shoot multiple rows?

I shoot panoramas most of the time, there's just something about the format that appeals to me.

1. There are two advantages to shooting this way, firstly you get a bigger image as you are effectivley getting more pixels so a 100mpx or 200mpx is possible meaning great detail and the possibility of printing big.

Second it allows me to shoot at a longer focal length so I'm not crushing the verticals as would happen with an ultrawide but I can have a very wide field of view.

2. I don't see why this wouldn't work, but I think you'd struggle to get a big enough shift by just increasing the height

 

[smoke665]

don't see why this wouldn't work, but I think you'd struggle to get a big enough shift by just increasing the height

Yeah I've wondered about that. Depending on the "L" bracket and the center column I'm guessing maybe 24-30" range.

 

[smoke665]

The nodal point needs to stay the same if you're considering raising the camera to increase the FOV vertically. Otherwise, your perspective changes, which may cause stitching issues. It's the same problem if you moved the camera horizontally during panning for a landscape, only turned 90°.

Imagine using a nodal point when taking images for a vertical pano.

I think we're on the same page. I'm not talking about shifting the tilt of the camera, the nodal slide or "L" bracket, simply raising the whole thing up vertically.

 

[480sparky]

The nodal point needs to stay the same if you're considering raising the camera to increase the FOV vertically. Otherwise, your perspective changes, which may cause stitching issues. It's the same problem if you moved the camera horizontally during panning for a landscape, only turned 90°.

Imagine using a nodal point when taking images for a vertical pano.

I think we're on the same page. I'm not talking about shifting the tilt of the camera, the nodal slide or "L" bracket, simply raising the whole thing up vertically.

If you do, you'll be altering the perspective of the scene. You may encounter stitching error.

Although I don't see much advantage to raising it as you'll only gain the distance you raise the camera in the scene. IE, if you raise the camera 18", you'll only get 18" more at the top of whatever scene you're taking.

 

[ac12]

I think the vertical stitch would be made by changing the elevation angle of the lens,
much like the horizontal stitch is made by changing the lens azimuth.

IMHO, a ball head would/might be difficult to use for the vertical stitch, because you can't elevate the camera without likely changing the azimuth and tilt of the camera. I would use a 3-way pan head. But I have not tried to do a vertical stitch with a ball head.

Tip,
1) put a bubble level on the tripod, and level the tripod. Unfortunately many tripods don't make this easy to do.
2) put a bubble level on the camera
So that when you rotate the head horizontally, the image stays level.

 

[weepete]

I've done it before with a handheld pano, 10 shots bottom, 10 shots top so as long as you have enough overlap to crop the curve out.

I got a cheap gemtune indexing rotator with a leveling base that's really useful. Chuck in an arca swiss compatable nodal rail slide with an L bracket and you've got a cheap stable panoramic triopd head. Worth considering if you will be taking a few panoramas.

 

[smoke665]

@weepete just remembered I have a 4-way macro rail at home that should work as a nodal rail, that's already mounted to a tripod with a rotating base, with indexing. Should be able to rig an "L" bracket on that to flip the camera for portrait mode.

 

[weepete]

@weepete just remembered I have a 4-way macro rail at home that should work as a nodal rail, that's already mounted to a tripod with a rotating base, with indexing. Should be able to rig an "L" bracket on that to flip the camera for portrait mode.

Cool, that sounds like it'll work fine. I have a macro rail and originally thought I could do the same but it didn't quite fit together but YMMV.

Beware of CPLs too, because of the very wide FoV you can end up with x banding or some intense colour variations in the sky that are virtually impossible to fix in post.

 

[tirediron]

Somewhere I've got a whole pano kit; leveling base, nodal rail(s), etc, etc... and I've totally given up on it. I used to spend a long time setting up a pano, ensuring the lens axis was perfectly level, the nodal point was dead on the rotational axis, etc, etc... The pano functions in PS are so good now, that I haven't bothered in years...

This is an eight (IIRC) image portrait-orientation I shot, totally freehand, standing on top of a concrete dome, with the tour guide moaning that I needed to hurry up as we were running late... slammed 'em into PS, and voila: