Ballhead for Panoramas

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Kennett

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Barry
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Can I ask if a normal ballhead can be used for Panoramas?

The more I read the more confused I become, most websites say you need a special panorama ballhead where the front element of the lens stays on the same plane.
 
You can use them but they are a bit of a faff. Hell I do mine handheld.
 
Depends on your definition of Panorama.
If you are just stitching a few horizontals together, you would probably get away without a fancy head.

If you are doing 360s and want repeatable results, you would benefit from a pano. head
The NN3s are a popular model - http://shop.nodalninja.com/nn3-mkii-starter-package/
They are no problem once set-up correctly.

For ease of use you could use a wide angle lens and the atome style lens holder - nothing to adjust.
http://shop.360precision.com/atome-sigma-8mm-f3-5/
 
Kennett said:
The more I read the more confused I become, most websites say you need a special panorama ballhead where the front element of the lens stays on the same plane.
Click to expand...

Depends on who close intervening foreground objects are.

If everything is in the distance then caerful hand holding is quite effective.

If you're doing multiple layers or shots with close foreground elements then specialised kit like a Nodal Ninja will help.

I use a simple setup for single layer strips - with a L bracket for the camera, a short nodal rail, and a cheap panoramic head that sits on a ball head. The ballhead is for leveling. The rotation is done using the panormaic head. The nodal point can be adjusted with the rail.
 
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Dryce said:
Depends on who close inrvening foreground objects are.

If everything is in the distance then caerful hand holding is quite effective.

If you're doing multiple layers or shots with close foreground elements then specialised kit like a Nodal Ninja will help.

I use a simple setup for single layer strips - with a L bracket for the camera, a short nodal rail, and a cheap panoramic head that sits on a ball head. The ballhead is for leveling. The rotation is done using the panormaic head. The nodal point can be adjusted with the rail.
Click to expand...

My setup is the same. A Benro PC0 in my Manfrotto ballhead, a 15cm sliding rail so the nodal point can be found and a Benro L Bracket on the camera for easy switching between landscape and portrait format
 
Thanks everyone for all the help and advice, really appreciated. Far more to panorama shots than first meets the eye.
 
Kennett said:
Thanks everyone for all the help and advice, really appreciated. Far more to panorama shots than first meets the eye.
Click to expand...

Actually there isn't !

It can be complicated but it's surprising how well you can manage handheld in many situations - lock the focus and exposure (and white balance if using JPegs) and then just rotate the camera and overlap the shots - try not to let it tilt sideways or forwards/backwards. There's free software about such as ICE and Hugin - and low end software like Photoshop Elements will also stitch shots.

I'd say just try it by hand and use something like Microsoft ICE as a simple starting point - and then from there figure if you want to make things a bit organised with some extra bits for your tripod and some more complex software and processing.
 
Search for 'String monopod' on the Interweb.

Heres a starter.

I think my first ever - here - was taken with this method, as can be seen from the dodgy stitching on the viaduct, but I was pleased with it at the time.
 
Thanks for the link to the tutorials John, some really helpful stuff in there.
 
The normal ball head will be fine unless you have a lot of foreground in the images, in which case using a panoramic head to rotate around the nodal point becomes important.
 
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