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Archive 2016 · Panorama Gear Suggestions, Please

  
 
Kee Woo Rhee
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Panorama Gear Suggestions, Please


I am seriously considering to acquire gear for panorama photography.

Some one suggested to photograph images with wide angle lens and crop the image into a panorama. "Simple as that!" he said, due to the high quality of the camera these days.

But I think it would be necessary to shoot multiple shots and stitch them into a panorama image in order to have a high quality image to the end.

Therefore I would be very much interested in getting a proper gear for this.

My main objective is to shoot landscapes and architecture.

There seem to be two main products as I know of now, one from RRS, and the other from Manfrotto.

Please let me know which product would be reasonable to purchase in terms of weight, price, and effectiveness.

Thanks

Kee



May 14, 2016 at 05:18 PM
howardm4
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Panorama Gear Suggestions, Please


truth be told, depending on what you want, you dont need anything. I have quite a few pano's (single row, 5-7 shots) done simply by being careful and rotating my hips without moving the camera through the arc of the shot. A ballhead w/ panning base (and leveller) is next, then you can add a nodal slide if you have close-in objects, then maybe a multi-row setup. It all depends on how much $$ you want to drop on the problem.


May 14, 2016 at 06:25 PM
EB-1
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Panorama Gear Suggestions, Please


I have several pieces of RRS gear for panos, though they have been replaced with newer versions. The most basic is to get a nodal slide such as the RRS MPR-CL and then level your ball head base for panos. Assuming that you have an A-S ballhead and camer with an L-bracket, a nodal slide alone will handle 90% of your single-row needs and is a good lightweight option. A more dedicated setup is needed for proper multi-row pans, but start with the single row panos first.

EBH



May 15, 2016 at 12:09 PM
Abbott Schindl
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Panorama Gear Suggestions, Please


howardm4 wrote:
truth be told, depending on what you want, you dont need anything. I have quite a few pano's (single row, 5-7 shots) done simply by being careful and rotating my hips without moving the camera through the arc of the shot. A ballhead w/ panning base (and leveller) is next, then you can add a nodal slide if you have close-in objects, then maybe a multi-row setup. It all depends on how much $$ you want to drop on the problem.


This is absolutely true. I've even shot excellent 7-9 frame panoramas from a kayak, both dealing with a meandering river current and on a lake. When on a boat, I use a variant of Howard's rotation method. When on land, I lock my body and carefully rotate about my feet on the rare times I'm not using a tripod, or else I level both the tripod and head and pivot with the head's pano capabilities.

The only times I really need a pano head are when I need to be extremely careful to avoid parallax (example: I want to properly capture a scene containing an element fairly close to the camera and a distant background), or when I'm capturing a multi-row pano. But for single-row panos, even those encompassing 10-20 frames on my 5DSR, just carefully leveling the tripod and ballhead and carefully stitching work fine.

If you decide you really need more extensive pano gear and are handy in a shop, there are a number of good designs available online. I designed my own, which took only a day or so to fabricate from acrylic and other raw materials.



May 15, 2016 at 01:45 PM
OregonSun
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Panorama Gear Suggestions, Please


+1 just doing it by eye instead of fiddling with gears. It takes some practice to get right, but doing so will help you see better.

I do a lot of landscape panoramas. I prefer the greatly reduced perspective distortion that I can achieve by shooting panos at 24mm or 40mm (on a 7D2) instead of fitting it all in the frame with an UWA. Panorama software can sometimes struggle to stitch together shots frow UWAs, especially if they don't overlap enough. Shoot extra around your composition, then you have room to crop. Use content aware fill to fill gaps on the edges, and the warp tool to do local perspective correction to taste.

Here are some examples:





3 rows of 3 landscape shots







1 row of 4 landscape shots







2 columns of 5 landscape shots, warp tool to straighten tree on left




May 15, 2016 at 04:05 PM
Kee Woo Rhee
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Panorama Gear Suggestions, Please


EB-1 wrote:
I have several pieces of RRS gear for panos, though they have been replaced with newer versions. The most basic is to get a nodal slide such as the RRS MPR-CL and then level your ball head base for panos. Assuming that you have an A-S ballhead and camer with an L-bracket, a nodal slide alone will handle 90% of your single-row needs and is a good lightweight option. A more dedicated setup is needed for proper multi-row pans, but start with the single row panos first.

EBH


Thanks for the information. Apparently I do have RRS MPR-CL-II with integral clam, so I will first off practice for the single row panos. Thanks.




May 15, 2016 at 07:53 PM
jcolwell
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Panorama Gear Suggestions, Please


Here's a recent thread on the same topic,

Panorama question, https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1426533/



May 15, 2016 at 08:00 PM
Kee Woo Rhee
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Panorama Gear Suggestions, Please


Abbott Schindl wrote:
This is absolutely true. I've even shot excellent 7-9 frame panoramas from a kayak, both dealing with a meandering river current and on a lake. When on a boat, I use a variant of Howard's rotation method. When on land, I lock my body and carefully rotate about my feet on the rare times I'm not using a tripod, or else I level both the tripod and head and pivot with the head's pano capabilities.

The only times I really need a pano head are when I need to be extremely careful to avoid parallax (example: I want to properly
...Show more

Hello Abbott,

Thanks so much for your detailed input.It is inspirational to hear that you designed your own!! Can you post the image of your design here? That would be very nice!
Thanks again,
Kee



May 15, 2016 at 10:04 PM
Kee Woo Rhee
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Panorama Gear Suggestions, Please


OregonSun wrote:
+1 just doing it by eye instead of fiddling with gears. It takes some practice to get right, but doing so will help you see better.

I do a lot of landscape panoramas. I prefer the greatly reduced perspective distortion that I can achieve by shooting panos at 24mm or 40mm (on a 7D2) instead of fitting it all in the frame with an UWA. Panorama software can sometimes struggle to stitch together shots frow UWAs, especially if they don't overlap enough. Shoot extra around your composition, then you have room to crop. Use content aware fill to fill gaps
...Show more

Very nice pictures, OregonSun!!
Thanks.
Kee




May 15, 2016 at 10:05 PM
Kee Woo Rhee
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Panorama Gear Suggestions, Please


jcolwell wrote:
Here's a recent thread on the same topic,

Panorama question, https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1426533/


Thank you so much with the link. I think there is no reason to duplicate the question. So this posting is closed for any further discussion.




May 15, 2016 at 10:07 PM
jharter
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Panorama Gear Suggestions, Please


Kee Woo Rhee wrote:
Thanks for the information. Apparently I do have RRS MPR-CL-II with integral clam, so I will first off practice for the single row panos. Thanks.



If you have the RRS nodal rail and know how to find the parallax point (or whatever the proper term is), then you need one more bit to make your life easier. That is a panning base like the RRS PC-LR:

RRS PC-LR

I prefer a ball head that incorporates a panning clamp such as the Arca Swiss P0 or the Acratech GP-ss. But if you already have a standard ballhead, the easiest/cheapest approach to to get the panning base.



May 27, 2016 at 05:14 PM
howardm4
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Panorama Gear Suggestions, Please


for the price and weight of a PC-LR, you may as well just get a P0 or something. The PC-LR is quite heavy, then add the nodal rail if you want, the ball head, etc etc etc. It can all turn into a pretty heavy package.


May 29, 2016 at 07:23 AM
uscmatt99
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · Panorama Gear Suggestions, Please


I got a couple of Sunwayfoto DDH-05 panning clamps brand new on evil bay for $40 apiece. They come with a removable dovetail so you can attach it to a normal clamp when you need panning capability, or of course you can swap it out with your existing ball head clamp. Fit and finish aren't RRS level, but are pretty good and the tested load capacity for panorama applications is more than sufficient.


May 29, 2016 at 10:07 AM
Abbott Schindl
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · Panorama Gear Suggestions, Please


Hello Kee,

Sorry for taking so long to respond; I've been busy!

Here are some photos. Since taking them, I've made several small modifications: a Kirk Arca Swiss clamp has replaced the Manfrotto QR plate and I've attached tables to the head for entrance pupil, vertical offset and similar things for all of my cameras and lenses so I don't have to remember everything.

The head wasn't very hard to build, but required a bit of thought and care.

Abbott





Abbott's DIY pano head




May 29, 2016 at 12:06 PM
elkhornsun
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · Panorama Gear Suggestions, Please


For single row panoramas all you need is a ballhead, L bracket for your camera, and a nodal slide like the ones sold by RRS. When you decide to go to double row or more complicated panoramas then the additional components can be purchased to use with your nodal slide and L bracket.


Jun 01, 2016 at 09:05 PM
dsjtecserv
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · Panorama Gear Suggestions, Please


elkhornsun wrote:
For single row panoramas all you need is a ballhead, L bracket for your camera, and a nodal slide like the ones sold by RRS. When you decide to go to double row or more complicated panoramas then the additional components can be purchased to use with your nodal slide and L bracket.


That would work for single row panoramas with the horizon dead center of the frame (often not the most creative choice). Also, unless an invertable ballhead such as the Acratech GP series or a separate panning clamp is used, the tripod as a whole would need to be leveled, which can be a pain. So while that's an adequate basic setup, it has some significant limitations.

Dave



Jun 02, 2016 at 07:54 AM
uscmatt99
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p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · Panorama Gear Suggestions, Please


dsjtecserv wrote:
That would work for single row panoramas with the horizon dead center of the frame (often not the most creative choice). Also, unless an invertable ballhead such as the Acratech GP series or a separate panning clamp is used, the tripod as a whole would need to be leveled, which can be a pain. So while that's an adequate basic setup, it has some significant limitations.

Dave


Yes it's quite limiting composition-wise to be perfectly level with the horizon in the middle of the frame. You need to be able to independently level the panning base horizontally, and the camera tilt vertically, even for a single row pano. So you could either use a leveling base under the ballhead with a panning clamp and nodal slide on top (or level your tripod each time which is painful), or a multi-row pano head using separate panning clamps for horizontal and vertical adjustment.

But this can be done with affordable add-ons if you don't want to spend a lot. There are adequately built inexpensive leveling bases, panning clamps with dovetail adapters, and nodal slides all over the internet shops.



Jun 02, 2016 at 08:17 AM
howardm4
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p.1 #18 · p.1 #18 · Panorama Gear Suggestions, Please


You could use a wider lens and do some extra cropping to 'move' the horizon or (and correct me if I'm wrong), use a T/S lens and raise/lower it.


Jun 02, 2016 at 09:21 AM
dsjtecserv
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p.1 #19 · p.1 #19 · Panorama Gear Suggestions, Please


uscmatt99 wrote:
Yes it's quite limiting composition-wise to be perfectly level with the horizon in the middle of the frame. You need to be able to independently level the panning base horizontally, and the camera tilt vertically, even for a single row pano. So you could either use a leveling base under the ballhead with a panning clamp and nodal slide on top (or level your tripod each time which is painful), or a multi-row pano head using separate panning clamps for horizontal and vertical adjustment.

But this can be done with affordable add-ons if you don't want to spend a lot. There
...Show more

The problem with simple setups using only a nodal slide is that if the camera is pitched up or down from perfectly horizontal, it is not being rotated around the no parallax point of the lens. The risk of parallax-induced stitching problems, especially when significant foreground is included, is increased. The only way to avoid this is, as you say, to provide for independent rotation in the horizontal and vertical directions, with both of them around the NPP. While it clearly increases the weight and setup time, a two-arm system is necessary to ensure the ability to allow for pitching the camera (and avoid centered horizons).

Dave



Jun 02, 2016 at 12:20 PM
uscmatt99
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p.1 #20 · p.1 #20 · Panorama Gear Suggestions, Please


dsjtecserv wrote:
The problem with simple setups using only a nodal slide is that if the camera is pitched up or down from perfectly horizontal, it is not being rotated around the no parallax point of the lens. The risk of parallax-induced stitching problems, especially when significant foreground is included, is increased. The only way to avoid this is, as you say, to provide for independent rotation in the horizontal and vertical directions, with both of them around the NPP. While it clearly increases the weight and setup time, a two-arm system is necessary to ensure the ability to allow for pitching
...Show more

Crap I need more coffee to do that thought experiment, as it sounds like I misspoke. What I gather is that by using the ballhead to change pitch, even with the camera on a nodal slide, the NPP of the lens moves off axis and introduces parallax error? I guess that's right since you're rotating at the level of the ball, not on a panning clamp lined up with the NPP. Fortunately only an issue with a very near foreground subject, and big depth of field.



Jun 02, 2016 at 01:02 PM
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