IMPORTANT UPDATE -> The BoneHead, a custom built pano-head
IMPORTANT UPDATE -> 360 VR Panorama Workflow
I have been taking panoramas for a long time always hand-holding the camera, I quickly noticed how hard it is to do this in a small ambient. To avoid strong parallax errors the only solution is using a panoramic head. There are many professional (as much professional as expensive) pano-heads out there, you can check this list. I decided to build my own mainly for these reasons:
- it’s much much cheaper
- it’s smaller and lighter
- it’s custom, sized for my camera and lens, it won’t need any further configuration In fact with such a small rotator (the tube itself), the nadir shot (the one downward) will be much better and clearer than with the other pano-heads. There are of course also cons, as a lower precision and.. stop! Following are different pictures that should explain how I did. I did not write a complete tutorial since the materials and the techniques highly depend on want you can get at your local store :D. By the way the hardest part was fixing the screw inside the aluminum tube, that has been achieved by putting the screw inside a wider screw (cold have been plastic or cork) and fixing it all with a pin. Remember to find the nodal point of your lens before starting building it!
Inspiration has been taken from these very good examples of homemade panoramic heads: