Panoramic photography without panoramic head

[epatsellis]

snip

Great reply, but I'm not sure what the moral is :lmao:

The moral of the story, and of the rest of the replies you've gotten so far, is that today's stitching software is so good, you probably don't need a panoramic head, nor will you miss it.

I thought the same thing, until I got my Gigapan Epic Pro head. Light years ahead in terms of ease of use, stitching accuracy and "fun factor"

 

[Buckster]

Great reply, but I'm not sure what the moral is :lmao:

The moral of the story, and of the rest of the replies you've gotten so far, is that today's stitching software is so good, you probably don't need a panoramic head, nor will you miss it.

I thought the same thing, until I got my Gigapan Epic Pro head. Light years ahead in terms of ease of use, stitching accuracy and "fun factor"

Not to mention cost, which I think, from reading the original post, is a deciding factor for the OP.

I'm not sure it helps to suggest a $900 solution when OP is talking about making a choice between "cheap" or "DIY".

 

[epatsellis]

There are less expensive alternatives, from nodal slides for $100 or less. The point is that while the software is good enough if everything works well, when it doesn't it really sucks. By shooting a more structured, consistent approach the success rate increases significantly.

 

[Buckster]

There are less expensive alternatives, from nodal slides for $100 or less. The point is that while the software is good enough if everything works well, when it doesn't it really sucks. By shooting a more structured, consistent approach the success rate increases significantly.

I suppose it just depends on how serious OP is about this, and how much accuracy they really need. I can't personally think why I would ever need or want a gigapixel photo, let alone many, many, many of them - enough to justify a $900 head so that they'll be *perfect*, but that's just me. OP may have that need, but it didn't read that way to me.

By the way, I haven't seen it "really sucking" since about CS2, as long as a decent amount of care with exposure, lens choice (chill on the distortion) and overlap were done - no additional hardware needed, as many in the thread have also intoned.

 

[table1349]

To the OP, the Kingpano is a good usable pano head for the average user at a good price. Good instruction on the site on using it as well as a Nodal point chart for various body lens combinations. If $149.00 is more than you want to spend and you are proficient with tools then you might look here. Build a Panoramic Head For Perfect Panoramas | DIYPhotography.net There are several different DIY pano builds on the site.

Just keep in mind, while you can hammer nails in with a rock, having a hammer does make the job easier. You can buy the hammer, you can make the hammer. You don't need a gold plated ruby encrusted hammer. After you are done you won't have as much follow up work to fix as you would if you hammered those nails in with that rock. Unless of course you can find a perfectly shaped round rock head the same size as a hammer head to use.

Good link on pano photography if you care to look at it some time. panoguide: Panoramic heads

 

[Ysarex]

Back in the day when I shot film I had a pano head and it certainly was handy, but recently I have to agree with Buckster; why bother? I shoot lots of panos now and really enjoy it. I'm not doing interiors and if I were I'd at least do like Sparky (nice shot there!) and use a tripod. I posted a bridge pano here a couple weeks ago: Lansing Iowa.

That's stitching together the bridge structure which I did directly in Photoshop without stitching software and the frames are not only hand-held they're shot from a moving canoe in the middle of the river -- kind of hard to nodal point that. For the only hard part -- the moving waves in the water -- a pano head would have been of no help.

Joe

P.S. And pay attention to Sparky and Tirediron, turn the camera vertical don't tilt it!

 

[table1349]

Looks like the Old Chain of Rock Bridge taken from the west side maybe south of the water treatment plant?

 

[Raincheck]

Hi,

I use a cord with some weight on it and pivot around a marker on the ground, use manual (shutter, iso) and take your shoots in portrait.
The shot below "Samuel beckett bridge, dublin convention center" is a hand shot.

 

[unpopular]

I have noticed that stitching is easier and there is less cropping when using a properly calibrated head. Mine did not have an adjustment for the 'Z' axis, so I had to add one using my macro rails.

I've used it once.

 

[Ysarex]

Looks like the Old Chain of Rock Bridge taken from the west side maybe south of the water treatment plant?

That's the bridge at Lansing Iowa not Chain of Rocks. It's the Black Hawk bridge named in honor of the Fox chief who along with his tribe was massacred by Army and militia troops at the Battle of Bad Ax (across and up river a bit). Here's another pano of the Bridge taken decades ago with a film camera that was tilted down a bit -- a little trickier to do:

File:View mt hosmer.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Joe

 

[Alex_B]

Well, simple answer ... if you want a lot of foreground included, as in those rocks or grass just inches or metres away, get a pano head, you will not be able to correct for close objects shading other objects by software. But if you do landscapes / cityscapes without a close foreground, or with flat surfaces not shading/hiding anything, then modern software might be able to do a great job!

You can also consider 120 roll film and a very wide LF lens in a panorama camera for one-shot-panos

 

[Ysarex]

.... You can also consider 120 roll film and a very wide LF lens in a panorama camera for one-shot-panos

Yeah! Stop screwing around with multiple frames and just do it right: Linhof Technorama 617

Joe

 

[Alex_B]

Linhof Technorama 617
Joe

A lovely camera

 

[epatsellis]

why stop at 617? Shoot 8x10 and crop as needed.

 

[Alex_B]

why stop at 617? Shoot 8x10 and crop as needed.

that is a waste of film though.


Actually , I often thought of building my own panoramic camera using an 8x10 capable lens and roll film stretching 10inch wide.