Determining the nodal point for panoramas

How many of you are actually determining the nodal of your lens before shooting panoramas? I am getting mixed advice on this. Some say do it to eliminate parallax. Others say it really makes no difference in your images.. Your thoughts?

I've used information found on Really Right Stuff website for getting my initial no-parallax points for the various lenses I use and then do my own testing be make sure they're correct. I've also done quite a few panoramas that were hand held. Quite frankly, I can't see a big difference either way. However, if I have my tripod with me and am doing a panorama with it, I will also use the no-parallax points that I've determined for the lens I am using just to be on the safe side. I figure as long as I'm taking the time to get things set up, I might as well do this best I can.

Probably the best way to determine what works best for you is to get out and take a few test shots and see how things go.

http://www.reallyright​stuff.com …he-No-Parallax-Point.html
http://www.reallyright​stuff.com …n-No-Parallax-Points.html

Doing it or not doing it can both work. However, if you take the time to do it, it will save you a ton of work when assembling your images together on the computer. Complex detail is far easier to stitch when it is rendered in the proper manner, with no parallax.
You essentially move the focus plane in and out when you do not have the pivot on the nodal point, as your rotation is through an arc, rather than about a single pivot point.
Nodal Ninja has a great little instruction called: Finding the Entrance Pupil of a Lens
If you can't find it email me and I will send it to you.

Rod

cerett wrote in post #17416500
How many of you are actually determining the nodal of your lens before shooting panoramas? I am getting mixed advice on this. Some say do it to eliminate parallax. Others say it really makes no difference in your images.. Your thoughts?

I do it, but I'm shooting 360x180 full spherical panoramas indoors with a fisheye lens. Parallax error in that kind of situation is the difference between getting a panorama to stitch correctly or not.

If, however, you're just going out to snap a handful of images of a landscape to stitch together for more cover and resolution, the chances are good you don't need to worry very much and can probably even shoot it handheld. The farther away from you the subject of your image is, the less you have to worry about parallax mucking up your stitch.

The best tutorial I've found on finding the no-parallax point of the lens, is this one on John Houghton's website. However, you could possible save yourself a lot of time and trouble if your lens is in the Entrance Pupil Database on the panotools wiki.

From my point of view its the difference between doing it right and doing a half-arsed job. Whenever you cut corners your final image is less perfect than it could be. Whenever you look at the finished result you will always know its not as sharp, not a crisp, not as real as it could have been, you will see the bad blends even if other people don't. As I get paid to do this accurately (yes its that kind of job
) the client would not use me again if I turned in something crap

One of the "rules" of good photography is to include foreground interest, as soon as you add that to background objects you are going to get parallax issues. The reason you include the foreground is to draw them into the picture, so the first thing they look at is where the problems are, its all down hill from there We all know that even though it is a panorama, they will lean in to see the details and view it like its a 10"x 8" not a 26'x6'.

Also it saves time fixing it in pre rather than post production. A couple of minutes spent aligning your point of no parallax will save hours of fiddling and retouching in post production.

All the best

BearSummer