articles/Panoramas/panoramasmadeeasy-page2

GigPan Epic Pro - Panoramas made easy! - part 2 of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

by Mike McNamee Published 01/08/2013

The Gear

The unit of choice for a DSLR is the Epic Pro which can take a payload of up to 10 pounds. We have used a 300mm f4 Nikkor and a D800 equipped with an MB D12 battery pack. The battery operated pan head is fitted to a (sturdy) tripod via a 3/8-inch thread. We used a Manfrotto MPRO 535 which is certainly beefy enough for the task. The camera may be moved in both the horizontal and vertical planes to position the nodal point of the lens on the axis of rotation. This is more important when using wide-angle lenses, less so with the telephoto lens we normally used for the sweeping panoramas of river scenes. Certainly for indoor pans, with close objects and lots of distortion, it is vital to set the camera carefully on the equipment.

The Workflow

There is a 53-page pdf manual for the equipment and it is pointless repeating it here. However, the basic workflow is to set the equipment up on a level tripod and then connect the camera to the onboard microprocessor (a number of leads, covering almost all eventualities are supplied). You then follow the onscreen menu which tells you to set the field of view first and then move the camera manually to set the corners of the panorama you wish to shoot. Just to be sure the menu then runs through a sequence getting you to check that things that should be locked (eg exposure, focus, white balance) are fixed down. It tells you how many images are going to be required and how long it is going to take and then, if you press OK it kicks into life and you can sit and have a flask of coffee.

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• GigPan Epic Pro - Panoramas made easy! page 7
  

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