advice on QTR303 head

[THE TROOPER]

I love pano images but don't own a pano head. I have a 055xpro tripod and would like to take good images.

I try with a fair bit of success with my geared head 410 but would like to know if its advisable to buy this head. It,s £250. If i did i would want it to be sturdy and weight is not an issue.

Do i need it to better my panos? I understand the nodal point system but some people say " why when you can do panos without"..........


Warm Regards
Ian

[Scottes]

I had the QTR 303 SPH, the spherical model for taking multi-row panos. (Funny, I also have the 410 head and the 055 tripod!)

It's a big beast, heavy, does not pack down (even collapsed it's big as hell) and it was a pain to set up. I used it 3 times and sold it.

But I general do long-range panos, where nothing is very close in the frame. And I use a very good pano program (PTGui and sometimes PTAssembler) which can do a great job of fixing the less-extreme problems with parallax errors. I have tried the Nodal Ninja, King Pano, homebuilt, and the QTR303SPH. I now do almost all panos hand-held and let the software fix problems.

But if you're doing 360-panos, or panos with close subjects, then I have to admit that a pano head is a must. And this is a great one, and a hell of a lot less than a Really Right Stuff pano head. The Manfrotto is more capable and much stronger than the Nodal Ninja or Kingpano (NN has a new bigger stronger one, but it's almost the same price as this one, but you might want to check it out).

If you really don't mind the size, weight, or setup time, then this will be very good. If you do mind any of those, then drop everything and shoot hand-held, or give up panos. :D


By the way, you will probably also want a leveling head. I had the Manfrotto 3416 leveling base, and it worked perfectly. You can get the head more level than you can measure. But it's also big (approx 4-inch diameter, 1.5-inch height, over a pound in weight). Ultra precise, but comes with a price (weight and size).

I sold that too, and got a leveling column instead, the Manfrotto 555B. It served double-purpose, since I did birding with a 500mm f/4. It's not nearly as accurate as the 3416, but it's a hell of a lot faster to get close enough, and it's much lighter since you remove the center column that's on your 055 tripod. The additional weight is negligible.

Hope this all helps.

[THE TROOPER]

Thanks very much for some sound advice Scottes.I appreciate it mate, you have been a great help.

I think i will get this set up along with a levelling base after checking the one you said NN.Is that ( Nodal Ninja? )

Warm Regards
Ian