DIY panoramic head + tips

This is a DIY tripod head for 360x180 (spherical) panoramas. It's made out of scrap wood, and isn't adjustable, so it will only work with the camera and lens it was created for. It's arranged so that the camera/lens nodal point is exactly at the intersection of 1. the pitch axis where it rotates in altitude and 2. the yaw axis where it rotates in azimuth. If you don't take care to get this right you'll end up with seams in the panorama.

The head has a wooden replica of the normal tripod quick-release bracket on the bottom.

This is set up to use an 18mm lens on a Canon EOS 60D (it's not a great lens, but it is very lightweight!).

To adjust the altitude, the vertical post on my tripod unscrews, so I use that to avoid any other movement (and accept the 0.5mm height offset it creates!). I scratched markers at 30 degree intervals.

To adjust the azimuth I loosen the bolt, and have markers for 0, +/- 35 and +/- 70 degrees.

Tips for doing the panorama:

1. The tripod vertical post is the thing that you need to get vertical. Try to also get the camera at the the right angle (so it doesn't sag sideways), but that's not so important. Remember if the "normal" pitch control is off centre, then the nodal point will get shifted too, and you don't want that.

2. Don't forget to measure the height of the nodal point above the ground! For RC panoramas, eye height is best (unless you're exceptionally tall or short!)

3. Lock the exposure based on one of the brighter directions, and make sure the aperture is pretty wide, low ISO.

3. I'd suggest doing the 0 degree row first. Then +35 then +70, and -ve angles after that. That way if there are clouds you'll minimise the movement.

4. At +/-70 deg you don't need images every 30 degrees - every 90 is plenty. However, some stitching programs might be easier to use if there's a regular grid of photos, so it might be easier to just take the extra photos.

5. Use a remote (IR or wired) shutter trigger, or if not that then a 2 second timer to avoid shake and keep the angles accurate.

6. Having fairly accurate angles helps in giving the stitching software a starting point - especially in regions like the sky where there aren't good control points.

7. When you finish, you can take one additional photo down without the tripod to remove the tripod from the final panoramic image.

8. If it's for a simulator, then make measurements of distances to nearby objects if you can.

Hope this helps - it worked for me! Here's one I created earlier:

(give it a few seconds to load the full colour images) or even better, see it inside PicaSim: