Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Cameras, Lenses and Shooting gear => Topic started by: neil74 on November 23, 2008, 08:44:49 am
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Hello all,
I am weighing up the pros and cons of going for a pano head. As well as the obvious expense (not a show stopper) I am concerned about the bulk as they all seem to be huge.
I am wavering as I only intend to do single row panos with my 5D and probably some wth my Sigma DP1 too, I understand the parallax issue, but as all I really want to do is some single row ones I am wondering if a pano head is really necessary?
Any real life feedback much appreciated.
Rgds
Neil
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If you shoot with a lot of overlap and don't have any scene detail closer than maybe 15 feet or so from the camera, you can get good stitched images from hand held shots. The more precisely you shoot the better your stitches will be in more problematic situations... minimal overlap because you have to cover a scene quickly before something changes... or there's a lot of foreground detail. A good, calibrated pano head helps you shoot very precisely. When you shoot precisely the stitching process is simpler and faster. Look at the basic Really Right Stuff (http://reallyrightstuff.com/rrs/Customkititems.asp?kc=Pano%2DElem%2DPkg&eq=)package for single row panos. It's small, light and can be upgraded later into a very nice multi row setup if you want. It's not inexpensive but extremely well made and a joy to use... especially if you already have other RRS components.
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Neil, I would consider the pano head necessary depending on the picture.
What I mean is - if everything is quite some distance off like a landscape with everything 250' away or more, you can certainly hand hold and get a good picture. I sometimes rest on a log or against a tree or on a beanbag. And I try to watch when I move the camera to rotate it around the lens nodel point.
If objects are also in the foreground like at 25' - 50', then yes you are much better off with a tripod in my opinion.
I almost always use one. The exception is when I just don't have enough time or tripods are not allowed.
If in question, use one.
The picture is 3 X 5 frames taken on a bean bag sitting on the railing of a bridge.
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i've taken pans handheld, with a monopod, and tripod using the RRS pano head
i'd recommend you invest in good software like PTGui and practice hand-held - i've had good success with urban and rural landscapes handheld on single row pans. with more practice i think two row pans are practical, but the camera should be held horizontally rather than vertically. It's important to allow plenty of room for cropping with hand-held pans.
if you want to include closer detail, then you need to rotate about the nodal point of the lens which is difficult to do hand-held. with a RRS L-bracket and nodal slide you can do it with a monopod if it's not practical to carry a tripod. the RRS pano head with L-bracket and nodal slide on a tripod (even a very light tripod in good light) is certainly the best although it's heavy and expensive. Feisol makes a much less expensive (though no less bulky) pano head which doesn't have the nice built-in clamp. with some combinations of tripods and ball heads it's also possible to turn the ball head upside down. you can also use a conventional ballhead on a tripod with a level (level the tripod with the legs) then use a bubble level on the hot shoe of the camera
in short, go shoot some panos and see how it goes before investing in a bunch of stuff you don't use much (as i don't, even though i don't mind having it)
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Thanks for all the replies. Just to confirm I am not intending on doing hand held panos, I have a selection of tripods and heads so it is really whether a pano head is worth it vs a normal tripod head.
Thanks
Neil
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Thanks for all the replies. Just to confirm I am not intending on doing hand held panos, I have a selection of tripods and heads so it is really whether a pano head is worth it vs a normal tripod head.
Thanks
Neil
I'm not sure what you mean by Pano Head and Normal tripod head? 3 basic types; Panning (fluid) head for Video, 3 axis head and ball head. A large number of ball heads have a panning base which is all that you need.
Marc
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Echoing others: if you're not doing indoor panos and avoid foreground elements, you don't need a pano head. I've done several multi-row panos with ball head and they turn out perfectly.
with more practice i think two row pans are practical, but the camera should be held horizontally rather than vertically.
Any reason to recommend horizontal? I always shoot vertical as that gives me more room to crop.
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http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index....showtopic=28944 (http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=28944)
http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index....showtopic=29284 (http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=29284)
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i shoot single row panos handheld with the camera vertical, however, with two rows i have a harder time holding the camera vertical and getting top, bottom, and side overlaps correct -- likely this wouldn't be an issue with a vertical grip
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Thanks for all the replies. Just to confirm I am not intending on doing hand held panos, I have a selection of tripods and heads so it is really whether a pano head is worth it vs a normal tripod head.
Thanks
Neil
I find this rail (http://reallyrightstuff.com/rrs/Itemdesc.asp?ic=MPR-CL-II&eq=MPR-CL-II-001&Tp) a useful addition to the bag (there is a shorter one for wide-angle lenses). It's not a full "pano" head but can eliminate parallax for single rows. You only need to figure out the "nodal point" for the lens - it has a bubble level to help alignment.
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Nodal Ninjas are relatively compact, and inexpensive.
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What about the Manfrotto 300n? It seems to be suited to single row panos and also looks quite compact as well.
Anybody used one?
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You are talking about using a tripod to do panos with a moderately heavy camera body. What lens are you planning to use?
I highly recommend the Really Right Stuff Pano equipment. I use it extensively. For lightweight applications, I use the Nodal Ninja. It is excellent for a digicam or light DSLR setup.
When I first got started, I used what would be called a cylindrical setup mounted on top of a ballhead. It consisted of a RRS panning clamp and a nodal slide with clamp for the 'L' bracket on the camera. This works well as long as you want to shoot level with the horizon. There are everyday scenarios that DON'T work with this setup. The most common would be standing at the edge of a cliff or overlook and trying to take a panoramic looking down. You would think that you could simply tilt the ballhead downward and use your cylindrical setup. NOPE. If you do that, your images will be arranged in an arc, like the shape of a rainbow. It will be nearly impossible to get a decent, wide stitch out of it.
For this reason, I always take a spherical setup. Really Right Stuff has an excellent one that allows you to make multi-row mosaic panoramas as well as upward or downward looking single-row panoramas. The Nodal Ninja is also a spherical setup, but I wouldn't recommend it with a 5D and most lenses.
I consider the ability to do panoramics/mosaics like having another lens. The widest lens I carry is a 24-70, but with panormaics on a calibrated head, I can take any wide angle I want with minimal distortion. To do this, I need the calibrated spherical head. If you are content to take occasional panoramics out in the distance, level, towards the horizon, your equipment needs can become very modest. Then, I would recommend a panning clamp, bubble level, and 'L' bracket. I would even dispense with the nodal slide. As a matter of fact, if you are willing to mess around with your tripod legs to get the tripod level, then you can even use the yaw rotational control on your ballhead to pan the camera around, but you need to make sure that your ballhead has separate tightening knobs for rotation and the ballhead itself. This approach would be the closest thing to handheld but on a tripod.
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What about the Manfrotto 300n? It seems to be suited to single row panos and also looks quite compact as well.
Anybody used one?
I don't have an opinion about it, but I do have an observation. With the RRS gear, everything uses standard Arca Swiss type clamps and can be rearranged and reconfigured for special applications. I have used the same equipment as a cylindrical head, spherical head and nodal slide for macro and flowers. It also disassembles to a fairly small package. If the price of RRS gear is an issue, I would recommend getting the cylindrical setup and then later upgrading it to the spherical setup.
On the other hand, you may prefer NOT to develop a taste for RRS gear. Their equipment is premium quality, highly flexible, and expensive$$$
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Given that most ballheads have a rotating base unless you are intending to do vertical pano's, I wouldn't bother with the RRS stuff. I do a lot of vertical pano's (6X12) so I use the pano head for smoother movement when shooting vertical though if you use a zoom lens and have enough resolution, shoot a bit wider and you won't specifically need the pano head for vertical, it's already in the slot so it's easier to rotate up or down while going all over the place.
I've never needed the nodal slide using multiple zoom and prime lenses including with elements close to the camera. Modern software just doesn't need nodal point rotation except for extremely niche shooting. I didn't believe it when the likes of Alain Briot and others said it but from experience in the field it's very true! Image below has a lot of forground elements, the nearest point is inches from the tripod foot. No problem. I have many other examples.
(http://www.studio-beni.net/steps.jpg)
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Given that most ballheads have a rotating base unless you are intending to do vertical pano's, I wouldn't bother with the RRS stuff. I do a lot of vertical pano's (6X12) so I use the pano head for smoother movement when shooting vertical though if you use a zoom lens and have enough resolution, shoot a bit wider and you won't specifically need the pano head for vertical, it's already in the slot so it's easier to rotate up or down while going all over the place.
I've never needed the nodal slide using multiple zoom and prime lenses including with elements close to the camera. Modern software just doesn't need nodal point rotation except for extremely niche shooting. I didn't believe it when the likes of Alain Briot and others said it but from experience in the field it's very true! Image below has a lot of forground elements, the nearest point is inches from the tripod foot. No problem. I have many other examples.
(http://www.studio-beni.net/steps.jpg)
Great shot! I too have taken some cool stuff handheld. Urban landscapes tend to be easier in this regard because by their solid nature, there aren't as many things to see through and thus have paralax issues. In nature landscape, the most common and completely unresolvable issue is when looking through a stand of trees. Tree trunks will move with relation to horizontal branches...this makes very problematic and time-consuming manual blending a necessity. Effective ghosting with branches is very hard to tame with even the best panoramic tools ( I use PTGui).
(http://www.trailpixie.net/street-freehand.jpg)
Larger Version (http://www.trailpixie.net/street-freehand-bigger.htm)
If you are stitching for online or small presentation, handheld without nodal calibration is very good. If you are making panoramics so that you can display large prints, you need a tripod and pano head for both sharpness and alignment.
Another handheld:
(http://www.trailpixie.net/waterfront.jpg)
Blog Entry (http://www.trailpixie.net/general/in_the_shadows.htm)
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Hi,
I'm not shooting handheld, my work is with an RRS pano head.
I've found that Autopano pro kills ghosting dead, this image had quite a bit of ghosting between frames in the foliage at the bottom, it showed up badly in the preview in the software but once the image had been rendered there was zero, in a 30 megapixel image, absolutely none whatsoever.
(http://www.studio-beni.net/windmill2.jpg)
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Modern software just doesn't need nodal point rotation except for extremely niche shooting
This statement screems to be corrected. It may well be, that your panos don't require accurate shooting, and it may be that your requirement is lower than others'. Neither mean, that other settings and higher requirements do not need higher accuracy.
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This statement screems to be corrected. It may well be, that your panos don't require accurate shooting, and it may be that your requirement is lower than others'. Neither mean, that other settings and higher requirements do not need higher accuracy.
I am with Panopeeper on this. I can't say that you won't have SOME decent results without a calibrated setup, but your results will be inconsistent and your keeper rate will be much lower. Sometimes, depending on your photographic method, that is an acceptable tradeoff. For me, I like to know that my technique is going to hold up under all conditions.
Pom, you are showing some superior results, but their compositional elements aren't challenging to stitching software. I too have shot large handheld panoramics that I have sold for $100s. The difference is that when the circumstances become challenging, the calibrated setup will not fail you. If you are knowledgeable enough to recognize when more precision is needed, you can get great results without a calibrated head, like the shots you have shown, but when you get home and enthusiastically start stitching an image for which you have high-hopes only to find substantial parallax error across multiple frames, no amount of cloning and blending will soothe your breaking heart.
Some people shoot from the hip and get great results. Others are more deliberative and precise, and they too get great results. Neither is right or wrong. I guess your approach to stitching depends on the type of photographer you are.
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Hello all,
I am weighing up the pros and cons of going for a pano head. As well as the obvious expense (not a show stopper) I am concerned about the bulk as they all seem to be huge.
I am wavering as I only intend to do single row panos with my 5D and probably some wth my Sigma DP1 too, I understand the parallax issue, but as all I really want to do is some single row ones I am wondering if a pano head is really necessary?
Any real life feedback much appreciated.
Rgds
Neil
Here's 2-cents worth:
I likewise do occasional panos, single-row only. Most of my shooting is done while hiking or backpacking, so light & flexible gear is important. I use the small (BH-25, I think) RRS head and small clamp with the short RRS MPR-CL rail ( http://reallyrightstuff.com/rrs/Itemdesc.a...mp;eq=&Tp=) (http://reallyrightstuff.com/rrs/Itemdesc.asp?ic=MPR%2DCL&eq=&Tp=)). This allows me to find the proper rotation point for the lens (and also helps keep slightly too-heavy gear balanced on a light head & tripod). I still have to level the tripod and head separately, and have to rotate the camera by turning the center column (since there's no separate pan lock), but the inconvenience is worth it to me for the substantial weight and bulk saving.
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and here's another situation where a pano head is a must. I use an RRS rig for the traditional sorts of uses but I also use it for things like this. I needed a very high res shot of this product for a large display. This image is made from 6 frames with a 180mm macro on a 5D. With precise camera movement this thing stitches very easily.
[attachment=9854:080523_2861.jpg]
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Hi Neil. I made a pano head compact enough to go in a small backpack but found I never needed it. I rarely go more than 3 rows with usually no more than 5 shots per row, and no closer than across a street. Some are hand held (no more than 2 rows for this), otherwise on a sturdy tripod with rotating ball head, L plate and bubble level. Autopano has never had a problem stitching. The trickiest thing has been learning to line the rows up by sight. If you are only doing single rows you won't have this difficulty. When moving the camera horizontally I note the edge of the frame and add 10% to help the software, and double check that the plane of movement of the camera matches what I want to capture.
Why not save your money and go out and experiment with what you have and whatever software you are going to use, and see if that suffices. My experience has been that most expensive gear has been a waste of time and that learning to use the software was much more important (except for any gear from RRS who make things of great intrinsic beauty- stay away from them or you'll only bankrupt yourself wanting more). Set the camera vertically on your tripod and go for it. You may be pleasantly surprised with the results from what you have already. Cheers, David
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I am with Panopeeper on this. I can't say that you won't have SOME decent results without a calibrated setup, but your results will be inconsistent and your keeper rate will be much lower. Sometimes, depending on your photographic method, that is an acceptable tradeoff. For me, I like to know that my technique is going to hold up under all conditions.
Pom, you are showing some superior results, but their compositional elements aren't challenging to stitching software. I too have shot large handheld panoramics that I have sold for $100s. The difference is that when the circumstances become challenging, the calibrated setup will not fail you. If you are knowledgeable enough to recognize when more precision is needed, you can get great results without a calibrated head, like the shots you have shown, but when you get home and enthusiastically start stitching an image for which you have high-hopes only to find substantial parallax error across multiple frames, no amount of cloning and blending will soothe your breaking heart.
Some people shoot from the hip and get great results. Others are more deliberative and precise, and they too get great results. Neither is right or wrong. I guess your approach to stitching depends on the type of photographer you are.
Not again!
I'M NOT SHOOTING BLEEDING HANDHELD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Neither have I at any point advocated it! As I've said twice, I use an RRS pano head.
What I am saying is that I've never run into a situation where I have had parralex and I've done a heck of a lot more pano shooting than just these two pics!
I concur with those who say that it is not an issue for modern software and am yet to see an example which would be a problem.
I'm issuing a challenge. I want someone to put up a set of 'challenging' images for stitching that 'need' nodal point rotation but were shot rotating only the ballhead's base. I'll download them, shoot them through my software and we'll see if there is a parallex issue. I'm shooting with close up elements and have never seen a problem. If you can't show that modern software needs nodal point rotation with anything but niche applications then I would suggest that you stop advocating the need for it. I agree that indoor architectural photography may need it but as a niche application it is far from requiring the need to purchase expensive equipment unless you need it for that specific application.
I use a pano head (sans nodal slide) as it's a fast and easy way of stitching vertical pano's. Not because I couldn't use the ballheads rotating base instead which is the point I've been trying to make.
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Not again!
I'M NOT SHOOTING BLEEDING HANDHELD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Neither have I at any point advocated it! As I've said twice, I use an RRS pano head.
What I am saying is that I've never run into a situation where I have had parralex and I've done a heck of a lot more pano shooting than just these two pics!
I concur with those who say that it is not an issue for modern software and am yet to see an example which would be a problem.
I'm issuing a challenge. I want someone to put up a set of 'challenging' images for stitching that 'need' nodal point rotation but were shot rotating only the ballhead's base. I'll download them, shoot them through my software and we'll see if there is a parallex issue. I'm shooting with close up elements and have never seen a problem. If you can't show that modern software needs nodal point rotation with anything but niche applications then I would suggest that you stop advocating the need for it. I agree that indoor architectural photography may need it but as a niche application it is far from requiring the need to purchase expensive equipment unless you need it for that specific application.
I use a pano head (sans nodal slide) as it's a fast and easy way of stitching vertical pano's. Not because I couldn't use the ballheads rotating base instead which is the point I've been trying to make.
Sorry about the misquote. I think I was with panopeeper in honing in on this statement:
Modern software just doesn't need nodal point rotation except for extremely niche shooting.
This made me think you were referring to the whole panoramic head because that is what I think the purpose of the entire setup is. So as I reread more carefully, I see that you are using a panning base without nodal slide.
I will need to go back through my early panoramic work when I was still experimenting with equipment to find an example where I think a calibrated nodal slide is essential. Everything I have done for years has either been freehand (handheld) or used a spherical head.
As I described above, one area where it can be really annoying to work without a full spherical setup is when you are looking well below or well above the horizon. If you just use your ballhead, you get a panoramic in an arc like a rainbow, instead of a rectangle. I have done a great deal of stuff that starts at your feet and moves up into the trees. This extreme wide work that is very close to the camera is the most challenging stuff. As you mention, indoors, this is particularly problematic because of the multitudes of perfectly straight lines.
Also, multi-row work will be challenging without a horizontal and vertical rotation that is offered by a spherical setup.
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Hello all,
Thanks for all the replies. I have ordered a NN 180, capable of holding a greater weight than the NN3 (I will be using my 5D or my Sigma DP1) and well suited to single rows.
In the end I knew I needed some specialist equipment a lot of my work has foreground interest near the camera and as others have commented trees or bushes can be a nightmare.
Looking forward to getting it some time this week.
Neil
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and here's another situation where a pano head is a must. I use an RRS rig for the traditional sorts of uses but I also use it for things like this. I needed a very high res shot of this product for a large display. This image is made from 6 frames with a 180mm macro on a 5D. With precise camera movement this thing stitches very easily.
[attachment=9854:080523_2861.jpg]
Wouldn't this particular example be best done by moving the camera bodily upwards, taking several horizontal shots? Or am I just showing my ignorance?
Jeremy
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Wouldn't this particular example be best done by moving the camera bodily upwards, taking several horizontal shots?
When you move the camera position up and down (even just slightly) you change the nature of what you see through the bottle and liquid. The dark and light areas take on different shapes. Also the rear of the label begins to show through the glass. The position of highlights on curved surfaces (including the drops) changes. You really can't change camera position without changing several image elements that will make stitching more difficult. The only time that moving the camera up and down and shooting rows works semi well is if the object being photographed is two dimensional. I've photographed artwork exactly like that... but then you run into depth of field issues. Leaving the camera still and perfectly square to the art while moving the art works much better.
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Wouldn't this particular example be best done by moving the camera bodily upwards, taking several horizontal shots?
Put yourself into the place of the camera, positioned at the top of the bottle. How do you see the shiny plastic rim under the cap? From above, or perhaps you see it only as a narrow horizontal line.
Now, go somewhat lower. How do you see the plastic rim now?
The two views are contradicting. Although it is possible to make crops without any overlap, i.e. to eliminate the the contradictions (if the shots were made very accurately), but the result would be an unnatural appearance.
One could achieve roughly the same by shooting with a long lens from far away; again, the appearance (the perspective) would look unnatural: it is not like you see something up-close by going close to it, but by magnifying a picture made from far away.
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Wouldn't this particular example be best done by moving the camera bodily upwards, taking several horizontal shots? Or am I just showing my ignorance?
Bob and Gabor, thank you. Clearly the latter of the two choices I presented was the correct one! I'm better educated now.
Jeremy
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Warning: I haven't read the entire thread, and I am strictly an amateur...
I shoot mostly VR spherical panoramas using the Nikon 10.5 FE lens, where the right head (NN3 in my case) and correct setup are essential. Which is not what the op was asking about. But I also shoot single and multi row landscape panos. I have found that having the NPP/camera set up correctly, or even roughly correctly (I sometimes use zooms and only know approximately where the NPP is at differing focal lengths), helps a great deal where there is a pronounced combination of foreground and distant features: the greater the separations, the worse the parallax. To some extent, without a panohead, how well the stitch/blend works is dependent on exactly where on the subject the joins fall. I am using PTGui to stitch (excellent product) in combination with its own blend code, or Enblend or Smartblend. These usually give very similar results but occasionally one may be marginally and unpredictably better.
A point that may not have been mentioned (or I have missed) is that most people shoot panos in portrait format to maximise final resolution. For most regular non-panoramic heads this would mean that the POV/NPP swings though an arc. I haven't tried this but it doesn't sound too promising to me! It's worth mentioning in passing - I hope I'm not insulting anyone's intelligence - that in stitched cylindrical panoramas, horizontal elements (+ or - zero degrees of pitch) will exhibit unavoidable curvature which becomes more pronounced as pitch values increase (or decrease).
The NN series of panheads are small and light and if not perfect, they are not too expensive either.