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For the very best panoramas, you want to shoot on a tripod with a special panoramic head. It is possible to shoot panoramas handheld with some of the latest software packages, and indeed you may decide to do this from time to time where it is not easy or even possible to set up a tripod, but if you want the highest quality and assurance you will be able to assemble your panorama without seams, you want the panoramic head.
This is particularly true if your scene features objects close to the camera. Without a panorama head you will experience parallax which you may be unable to fix on those items. Move your head from side to side -- forground items will move against the background. If you take two pictures from two different focal points, you will get something you can't reconcile.
If you don't have any foreground objects, you can get away without a panorama head, or even handheld. However, when handheld, your main curse will be keeping your camera level. Handheld, there is a strong tendency to drift up and down, or to tilt sideways. Some panorama software can handle the tilting, but if you drift up and down, when you try to assemble the row and want to crop it to a rectangle, you will have problems. That's because you can only include the scene from the top of the lowest picture you took to the bottom of the highest picture.
Shooting from your tripod will keep you level, however you may want to carry a "hotshoe bubble level" if you have a hotshoe. These are just a few dollars at most camera stores. Most panorama heads will include a level, as being level is essential in such shots.
Most panorama heads mount in portrait mode. Portrait mode is the norm for single-row panoramas. If you plan on doing all multi-row, the orientation doesn't matter, but it's usually easier to design a mount in portrait mode. However, that makes it harder to mount the camera, and sometimes to use it.
When considering a panorama head you will want to ask:
For the best panoramas, you want a Panoramic tripod head. Such devices have a level, to keep your panorama level, and arms that let you spin the camera around its "nodal point." This is the place where the light rays from the lens come to a single point before they spread to form an image on the film plane. It is almost never above the tripod mounting screw. I have the Kiwi-L from Kaidan.
They don't make that any more but their new Kiwi Europa looks nice.
I have also tried the Gigapan motorized mount. Here is my review of a beta Gigapan.
I have also tried the earlier version of the Nodal Ninja. (Version 2-SPH) This mount has promise, but it was not strong enough to hold my DSLR with heavier lenses, and its notches (detents) at 15 degrees were not useful for my shooting modes at the time. Now that 15 degrees is of more interest to me I will be trying it again.
There are advantages and disadvantages to "click stops" on panorama heads:
Plus side
Minus side
So I do want it all, but I believe the above can be attained.
Here are some of the panorama heads I have worked with.
My review copy, the Nodal Ninja II, is now an older model, and the newer models look better.
My main reason for not enjoying the NN2 was its fixed detent interval of 15 degrees. That simply was not an interval I used frequently, and while I did use 45 degrees it was not a great solution. The newer model III, mark II, which I have not tried, uses detent disks to allow you to select various intervals beyond 15 degrees, such as 0, 18, 20, 25.7, 36 and 45. The base model requires disk swap to change interval, which is not a very workable situation -- I would probably leave ther zero disk in place most of the time, defeating the purpose.
They also offer some special large rotators that allow you to change the number of stops. Unfortunately the smaller R-D8 does not support a 50mm lens (15 degrees.) The larger one is much more flexible with a very wide range from 3.75 to 120. However, with the NN3, this is $350. The heavy duty NN5 with this rotator is $460.
The Nodal Ninja is a spherical pano head, allowing you to tilt up and down. It packs down quite small and light, however the vertical arm is screw-bolted onto the horizontal rotator arm, which means it takes a bit longer to put it together or pack it down.
The NN is made of aluminum. While that is strong and light, I was surprised as to how much vibration there is in the aluminum after turning the camera into a detent stop. This is true even with a light camera. You definitely will want to wait a couple of seconds after turning to a new stop before shooting, unless you are holding the camera or mount with your hands to dampen the vibrations. Likewise with a long lens, you may wish to use mirror-up shooting so that the mirror movement does not blur the shot.
This now discontinued pano head from Kaidan was my main head for some time. It does only single-row panoramas. It was built of aluminum, being reasonably light and strong. The rotator bar and the camera support plate clamped together rather than bolting together, which made it quite quick to take it apart and pack it down small in a camera bag.
The Kiwi featured a second screw on the mounting plate you could have the camera butt against to keep the camera stable even with a heavy lens. In theory one could do a multi-row with an imperfect nodal point, but I rarely did.
The base kiki had no detents, and instead used a teflon ring. This was a bit error prone, and the scale was made from a metal ink that was able to rub off.
Higher level Kiwis featured a rotator with detent disks, and still do. For a long time my most common panorama was 36 photos (10 degrees,) and they do offer such a disk now but did not in the past.
The Gigapan is a robotic imager. I tested their beta model, which could only hold very small cameras. I found it unacceptable for a number of reasons -- it was too slow, could not take most of my cameras, and had quality control problems. I returned it.
My review is not entirely fair because it has to be based on a unit that did not work properly, but you can read the not entirely fair review of the gigapan on my blog.
They have released new models, known as the Epic and Epic 100. The Epic has the same size limitations. The Epic 100 is more expensive at $450 but can handle more cameras, including the smaller consumer DLSRs, but not the more serious DSLRs such as I use.
Gigapan says a new SLR model is coming, and that it will use USB camera control instead of a shutter servo. I am very interested in seeing that.
It is worth noting that if you are shooting a panorama without objects in the foreground (ie. close to you) you can usually get away without trying to hard to spin around the nodal point. Your regular tripod head can do the job. In fact, with more modern software, you can often get away with handheld shooting!
Strangely, this is why it needs to be very easy to put your panorama head together and shooting needs to be quickly. Handheld panoramas will work fine most of the time. And they are so much easier and quicker to do that it is very tempting to do them. But sometimes they will fail, and you won't know that until later when your curse yourself.
The easier it is to get your panorama head based shot done, the less tempted you will be to do it quick-and-dirty. Of course, if you have plenty of time, and your tripod, you will always use even a hard-to-use or slow pano head.
If you do put the pano head together, and you want to shoot panos with different focal lengths (as I usually do) you may also find you are more tempted just to hand measure the intervals rather than change detent disks, especially if this requires any disassembly of the unit.