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Rrdstarr
8th of December 2007 (Sat), 00:50
My next door neighbor works as a photographer for Thrifty Foods here in Victoria and asked if I was interested in making him a homemade panoramic head for his tripod. Well being a machinist I couldn't resist!

I am a aviation machinist by trade to qualify that this wasn't botched together!:)

This is my first attempt:
It seems to fit a variety of cameras. Tried taking a pic with my wife's camera, but couldn't get an acceptable one...so I took my camera off and took a pic of her camera mounted on my panoramic! LOL!

Not sure if I should think of making these for profit or not? They are light weight but I placed a 10# block of steel on the arm and it held it without problems! I have roller bearings between the mounting plates and have detent stops every 20 degrees to look the head in place. T-slot track so it is infinitely adjustable!
scot079
8th of December 2007 (Sat), 02:57
Cool, but isn't it just like a 3D or pan/tilt head? Also, it looks like it may crumble under a heavy camera/lens combo.
FlyingPhotog
8th of December 2007 (Sat), 03:02
Cool, but isn't it just like a 3D or pan/tilt head? Also, it looks like it may crumble under a heavy camera/lens combo.

http://www.edb.utexas.edu/teachnet/QTVR/NodalPoint.htm

Info regarding "nodal point" .. different than just panning around in a circle to make a panoramic image.

Most panos are shot with "normal" lenses to allow for maximum area coverage with minimum distortion (iow, don't use WA or UWA lenses...) Big glass has too confined a POV for panos...
FlyingPhotog
8th of December 2007 (Sat), 03:03
To the OP:

Looks pretty slick!
Rrdstarr
8th of December 2007 (Sat), 16:03
Just got some feedback from the neighbor and he said it works great!:):):) Took a panorama of his living room as it is a bit chilly and windy today!

Guess I will build one for myself now!:eek:
PacAce
9th of December 2007 (Sun), 11:13
If you don't mind a suggestion...

The rail on the camera running parallel to the lens axis of your rig is short (too short in my opinion) while the rail attached directly to the tripod is too long. If you swapped the two so that the longer rail is on the camera, you'd be able to adjust for the nodal point of even longer lenses.