# Panoramic photography without panoramic head



## Compaq (Jun 1, 2012)

I visited a view point yesterday, and I think I got some decent shots. However, I'd like to include more of the view. My 11-16 wasn't wide enough to get it all, so I'd like to do a panorama with my 50/1.8. But I don't own a panoramic head for my tripod. So how will I be able to swivel the camera around the entrance pupil then? Should I just try to rotate around the middle of the camera as it is? 

Nothing in the frame would be very close to the sensor, it'll all be around 40 metres away. So parallax error probably wouldn't be huge anyway. But I'd like to make it as good as possible.  Decent panoramic heads cost a lot, it seems. What would be better. Buy a cheap one, or make one myself?


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## 480sparky (Jun 1, 2012)

I have yet to use any special pano heads and I haven't had any problems.


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## Compaq (Jun 1, 2012)

Which focal length are you using for your panos? And are you often having things in the foreground?


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## snowbear (Jun 1, 2012)

I've only done a few panos but I'll frame up a shot and pick a landmark in the viewfinder that is just inside the right edge (I pan from left to right) - about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way over.  When I frame up the next shot, I'll put that landmark just inside the left side of the viewfinder.  Sometimes I have trouble keeping the horizon level, but I can close enough that leveling in post is easy.  I shot one of the DC Cherry Blossoms using a bridge abutment as a tripod.


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## tirediron (Jun 1, 2012)

Don't worry about the pano head and entrance-pupil/nodal point issue.  Unless you're doing relatively close panos, or stacking in two dimensions, I doubt you will notice it.  I've shot pano with everything from ~18 - 200+ and as long as they were of reasonably distant subjects, never had a problem.  Get your camera level, use 25-30% frame overlap, and you'll be fine.


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## Compaq (Jun 1, 2012)

But what if I want to include more than what a leveled tripod can give me? I will be pointing the camera slightly down, around 30 degress perhaps. What I mean is having two, or three, "strips" of photos. Three "stories", each of maybe 5-7 pictures. And everything can't be leveled, or else I can't get what I'm after.


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## tirediron (Jun 1, 2012)

Shoot vertically.  That should give you lots of 'top to bottom' coverage!  I've got an inexpensive Manfrotto macro rail that I use to offset the camera when I absolutely have to, but I think shooting in vertical should give you lots of coverage, especially with that UWA.


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## 480sparky (Jun 1, 2012)

I use a 10mm and shoot in portrait orientation.  I move the camera 10° per frame.  Rarely have any issues using a standard Manfotto head.
























etc........ gives me:


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## Garbz (Jun 1, 2012)

The principles are quite simple. If you don't rotate your lens around the nodal point you end up with parallax error. That is objects that are in the foreground suddenly appear to be in a different spot than objects located in the background. The other issue is lens distortion, because even if you correct for parallax with the correct tripod if you use many of the lenses available you'll end up with barrel or pincushion distortion. Both of these mean your images won't line up.

How field relevant this is depends on your software and the extent of the problems. I show you an example below. In this case I said "Nodal point? I spit on your nodal point!!!" I actually rotated my body shooting handheld. The nodal point was about 25cm behind where it is, and not the 3-6cm a tripod will put you out by. 

Here's the result:





Ok I lied. That's not the result it's an interim stack. It shows just how bad the parallax error was in this case. Notice the background is completely unaffected, but the poser in the foreground was made somewhat less pretty?

Well after simply hitting "render" on the software. I get the following result: (I lied again, this result was after a bit of colour correction in photoshop too):






What is actually scary is that this was a 100% perfect stitch when I was done. I did not find a single stitch mark. A few weeks later I shot something from a long way away with zero parallax and there were some frames I simply could not correct for some reason and ended up manually aligning things in Photoshop, which is also an option if your rendering software can't figure out who's supposed to be where in the frame.


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## Edsport (Jun 2, 2012)

I've never used a tripod for a pano. Just take the shots of 3 stories and you should be good to go...


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## Compaq (Jun 2, 2012)

Garbz said:


> snip




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


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## Buckster (Jun 2, 2012)

Compaq said:


> Garbz said:
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> > snip
> ...


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.


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## 480sparky (Jun 2, 2012)

Compaq said:


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



Yummy mushrooms.


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## Skaperen (Jun 3, 2012)

The moral is ... just go for it.  Just make a reasonable effort to keep the pupil at about the same point.  Only close in panos, like a room, matter that much.

I did this one on a regular 3D head tripod.  The first pass at stitching in AutoPano Pro didn't come out well lining up the pews.  After tweaking the stack to reduce the overlap (cropped each image narrower) it came out decent.  It's not perfect, but you have to look for the stitching flaws to find them.  They do not detract from the image although the lighting kind of does.  The altar shots are rather hot.  But I did use a manual exposure all the way around so the boundaries would have the same lighting.

Vance Memorial Presbyterian Church Sanctuary Panorama

So go for it!  Do consider posting the whole pano stack somewhere if your stitch has problems, and maybe someone else will give it a try.


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## coastalconn (Jun 6, 2012)

For easy panos you have to try Microsoft ICE (goggle it).  It's free, easy and automatic.  I never use a tripod.  I shot this in IR.  I set AE-L and swung around and took 9 pictures in under a minute.  The ICE program stitched it all together.  You just choose your crop and save it.  Then process it however you would like...


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## epatsellis (Jun 9, 2012)

Buckster said:


> Compaq said:
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> > Garbz said:
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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"


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## Buckster (Jun 9, 2012)

epatsellis said:


> Buckster said:
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> > Compaq said:
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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".


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## epatsellis (Jun 10, 2012)

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.


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## Buckster (Jun 10, 2012)

epatsellis said:


> 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.


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## table1349 (Jun 10, 2012)

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


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## Ysarex (Jun 10, 2012)

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!


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## table1349 (Jun 10, 2012)

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


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## Raincheck (Jun 10, 2012)

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.


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## unpopular (Jun 10, 2012)

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.


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## Ysarex (Jun 10, 2012)

gryphonslair99 said:


> 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


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## Alex_B (Jun 10, 2012)

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


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## Ysarex (Jun 10, 2012)

Alex_B said:


> .... 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


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## Alex_B (Jun 10, 2012)

Ysarex said:


> Linhof Technorama 617
> Joe



A lovely camera


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## epatsellis (Jun 10, 2012)

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


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## Alex_B (Jun 10, 2012)

epatsellis said:


> 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.


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## nehas8 (Jun 18, 2012)

Hi, I don't think you need the pano-head. Of-course it will make your task easier, but its not absolutely necessary.
You can check this tutorial on panoramic photography: Panoramic Photography - Tutorial to Capture the Perfect Panorama
The author has shot almost all his shots, handheld!


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## epatsellis (Jun 18, 2012)

Buckster said:


> epatsellis said:
> 
> 
> > 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.
> ...



While I prefer to shoot architecture with a view camera and a Dicomed scanback, there are times when due to motion, wind, etc it's impractical or outright impossible. Clients could care less about any reason why you can't, only that you didn't deliver. I don't shoot gigapixel images, per se, but high resolution images for wide format output. I have other options available, but at times, the stitched approach makes sense. My typical job is 8-10 delivered 40" wide prints, with an dozen or so additonal views and detail shots on disc. 

There are significant advantages, from a software standpoint, to shooting a structured image. Autopano giga does a wonderful job stitching, as does Microsoft's ICE and others. While some may scoff at saving 20 to 45 mins per image, when you have to deliver a dozen or more images, that time adds up quick. 

Remember there are some on here that actually do this for a living, not just a hobby.


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## Buckster (Jun 18, 2012)

epatsellis said:


> Buckster said:
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> > epatsellis said:
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That's a good point, and you obviously have a need for the best means of producing the best quality.

Again, I think the proper advice for the OP depends on what the OP needs in that regard.


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## MetroRuss (Feb 28, 2013)

Garbz said:


> The principles are quite simple. If you don't rotate your lens around the nodal point you end up with parallax error. That is objects that are in the foreground suddenly appear to be in a different spot than objects located in the background. The other issue is lens distortion, because even if you correct for parallax with the correct tripod if you use many of the lenses available you'll end up with barrel or pincushion distortion. Both of these mean your images won't line up.
> 
> How field relevant this is depends on your software and the extent of the problems. I show you an example below. In this case I said "Nodal point? I spit on your nodal point!!!" I actually rotated my body shooting handheld. The nodal point was about 25cm behind where it is, and not the 3-6cm a tripod will put you out by.
> 
> ...


The results on the 2nd image are sexy. Could you kindly point.me in the right direction to research how you did what you did. I am using PScs5
Thanks for any tips!!


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## Garbz (Feb 28, 2013)

I'm not sure how well modern photoshop handles panoramas. My last attempt with it was back when it first had the feature and I quickly abandoned it. The software I use is called AutoPano Pro and is a feature rich panorama rendering program. For the most part all I really did was point it to a directory of the daily shoot, it found all my panoramas and created them, and in some cases it was as simple as hitting render, and in other cases I did a minor amount of adjustment to the horizon and level before hitting render.

In photoshop in the above image I increased contrast, then reduced brightness with a gradient mask applied to the sky, bumped up the saturation, and reduced the green channel. 

Anyway head to Autopano Pro | Panorama software for Windows, Mac, Linux | Kolor and check out the trial to see if it's worthwhile over photoshop.


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## MetroRuss (Feb 28, 2013)

Garbz said:


> I'm not sure how well modern photoshop handles panoramas. My last attempt with it was back when it first had the feature and I quickly abandoned it. The software I use is called AutoPano Pro and is a feature rich panorama rendering program. For the most part all I really did was point it to a directory of the daily shoot, it found all my panoramas and created them, and in some cases it was as simple as hitting render, and in other cases I did a minor amount of adjustment to the horizon and level before hitting render.
> 
> In photoshop in the above image I increased contrast, then reduced brightness with a gradient mask applied to the sky, bumped up the saturation, and reduced the green channel.
> 
> Anyway head to Autopano Pro | Panorama software for Windows, Mac, Linux | Kolor and check out the trial to see if it's worthwhile over photoshop.



Hi garbz 

Thanks for the reply.
Yes! I have been researching autopano giga and panotour pro. Im a newb photographer looking to get into the panorama market as a vr website builder and panotour vr provider.

I've been testing the autopano and the rendering is way faster than my cs5. I fell asleep while waiting for cs5 to stitch a 90 image 360 so i could compare it to ap.

Do you have a gallery to share id love to see your work.


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## Garbz (Mar 4, 2013)

I have an older gallery at Auer & Garbz Photography Hasn't been updated in years and since the last server upgrade it's been throwing a lot of PHP errors. 

My new gallery isn't ready for public consumption yet. A few HTML bugs still, however PM sent


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## ChefAlex (Mar 24, 2013)

Hi, my first post here but I have never used a pano head before and the results are just fine


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## skieur (Mar 25, 2013)

Use a Sony and do panos handheld and in camera, or do a high speed bracket handheld and batch stitch them together in Paintshop Pro X5 Ultimate.


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