Landscape Panos - Gear Help

[Tri Danimal]

This summer I am looking to get better at Landscape Panos. I am wondering if I need to invest in any additional gear. The below image was captured as 5 or 6 frames then stiched together in Lightroom. the gear used was Sony A7iii + Tamron 28-75mm, tripod, ball head.

I am wondering if there is a need to purchase a nodal rail/slider, leveling plate adapter, rotating pano head, I was maybe thinking of an L-Bracket for mounting the body in portraite orentation.

Those of you that shoot landscape panos can you share an image of you rig?

[Manfred M]

I've moved this thread into the Digital Cameras & Equipment thread as it is a better fit and more likely to get responses before it disappears behind other posts.

I use an "L-Bracket", long focus rail, tripod and an indexing head. The indexing head is not shown in the image.



In my view, a very sturdy tripod with head is an absolute essential. The long focusing rail is required to ensure that the camera and lens rotate around the entrance pupil to ensure that areas close to the camera are not distorted due to parallax issues. I also use an L bracket so that I can shoot with the camera in a vertical orientation.

Good options include having an indexing head. I did not start out shooting with one, but found I had to spend a lot of time leveling my camera on my tripod. I also use a remote release so that I do not touch the camera while making the exposure. There are work-arounds (like using the camera's self timer), but I find that I use this device in other aspects of photography so it just makes sense to use. The self timer does not work with mirror lockup, so there is another advantage of using a remote release.

I have only ever done a single row pano, so have not needed to invest in a proper pano head which is needed to make multi-row panos. I have shot panos with my shift / tilt lens but that is a very expensive accessory that most people can make do without.

[Tri Danimal]

Thanks for the gear info.

I just picked up the nodal rail, leveling head and pano plate. The pano plate does not have indexed head but it does have markings on it for 360deg rotation and its marked at every 2 degs. I will try to out this set-up and see if I need the L-Bracker.

[GrahamS]

I had occasion to visit the White Horse of Westbury last week. Also called the Bratton White Horse, Westbury lies on the edge of the Bratton Downs in Wiltshire, England. The horse is carved into the side of a hill, atop which lies an Iron Age hill fort and earthworks. Said to date from the 1600's, there is however, no documentary or other evidence for the existence of a chalk horse at Westbury before 1742.


I used my Nikon D7100 with the 16.0-85.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 VR. I made ten vertical exposures hand-held and stitched the panorama in PS CS5 Photomerge.

[xpatUSA]

I had occasion to visit the White Horse of Westbury last week. Also called the Bratton White Horse, Westbury lies on the edge of the Bratton Downs in Wiltshire, England. The horse is carved into the side of a hill, atop which lies an Iron Age hill fort and earthworks.

Excellent nostalgia! I lived just below the Uffington White Horse in the early 50's.

[GrahamS]

Excellent nostalgia! I lived just below the Uffington White Horse in the early 50's.

There is a farmhouse just out of sight below the White Horse - perhaps it is where you lived?

[xpatUSA]

There is a farmhouse just out of sight below the White Horse - perhaps it is where you lived?

A misunderstanding perhaps Graham; the Uffington White Horse is not the one you posted. My parents were in Service at Woolstone Lodge, a couple miles below that Horse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woolstone,_Oxfordshire
.

[GrahamS]

A misunderstanding perhaps Graham; the Uffington White Horse is not the one you posted. My parents were in Service at Woolstone Lodge, a couple miles below that Horse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woolstone,_Oxfordshire
.

[george013]

Picos de Europa. Three rows, and 39 images. On tripod and a simple focusrail which was to short for my camera/lens.
The picture is 100% so quite big.
Stitched with ICE. In a later version of ICE a fault in the left bottom corner has vanished, well I don't see it anymore.



George

[Tri Danimal]

So I tried out the gear that I ordered on a previous post. It turns out that the pieces (all from the same manufacturer) are not compatible. The leveling plate would not mount to the pano head, I could only get about 1-2 threads of engagement which is not enough to secure the camera on top. Also the nodal rail did not have the right angle cut into the rail for full engagement with the pano head.

for these reasons they wil be shipped back to the manufacture for a refund. I will continue to try Panos with my travel tripod and or hand held.

[SSSdave]

Read this:

https://www.panoramic-photo-guide.co...ad-review.html

Landscape and nature. Have been using the Nodal Ninja 3 MKII since 2015 with my A6000. The pano head is atop a Manfrotto ball head and Induro carbon fiber tripod. Not only is most of my work multi column row stitch blends, but all my shots are also focus stacked primarily using sharpest F5.6 apertures. Use Sigma 30mm F1.4 DC DN and 60mm F2.8 DN primes, both super sharp. Infrared shutter release, A6000 in Single-Shot Auto Focus Flexible Spot or Manual Focus. I chose APS-c and not FF specifically because FF to do the same would weigh twice as much with twice the bulk with multi times the cost while the trade off requires more frames per subject for a same size image. Also use Kolor Autopano Pro and Zerene Stacker with PS CS6 on jpg's. PS alone creates too many stitching artifacts.

A 12 frame 6 column 2 row shot last month was 17900 by 9200 pixels though my most common frames are 3 column by 1 row that creates approximately 9200x6000 pixels.

[rpcrowe]

My problem with Panos is that, IMO, they do not display well on monitors because in order to get the entire pano left to right showing on a monitor, the top to bottom size becomes minuscule. It does help a bit to capture the images for the pano with your camera in the vertical position.

However when printed in an extremely large size and displayed on a wall is when the beauty of the pano comes into its own...

[Manfred M]

My problem with Panos is that, IMO, they do not display well on monitors because in order to get the entire pano left to right showing on a monitor, the top to bottom size becomes minuscule. It does help a bit to capture the images for the pano with your camera in the vertical position.

However when printed in an extremely large size and displayed on a wall is when the beauty of the pano comes into its own...

As my printer takes 50 ft rolls of 17” wide paper, this is definitely not a problem for me....

[ST1]

My problem with Panos is that, IMO, they do not display well on monitors because in order to get the entire pano left to right showing on a monitor
However when printed in an extremely large size and displayed on a wall is when the beauty of the pano comes into its own...

I have to agree Richard. I have the following image printed on Foam Board at 165 Cm x 40 Cm (65 x 16 inches) it looks good printed but when sized for use on the web it is rather awkward to view.
The original set of images for this panorama were taken hand held! with the camera in a vertical orientation.




Whilst this image was derived from a set of hand held images. I do have a modified Manfrotto geared head. The modification gives me a similar solution to that posted at #2 above by Manfred. The following link is to the suppliers website and includes details of the modification.

Whilst the link is to the head modification I use the supplier does have solutions for other manufactures kit which may be of use to Tri.


http://www.hejnarphotostore.com/product-p/m410longf63.htm