DIY Panoramic Tripod Head

UPDATE: I upgraded to D700 camera with Nikon 16-35mm thus the design of this panoramic needs update. I post pictures of the new version here
I've been in love with Panoramic ever seen I hold the camera. The camera, lens limit so much once the beautiful scenery is captured. Panoramic let viewer see the whole different level of photo. It let photographers take viewer to wherever they want in a more realistic way.

Then I found out something even better than 360 pano. It's the wee planet with 360 x 180 view. Sweet! Now you can see a completed place in one picture, one kinda weird looking picture. I did an OK job on these wee planet pics. But every now and then I got a miss match pics. Which lead me to search for a solution and that is NODAL NINJA . These guys make one hell of a tripod head for pano photography with a cost of an arm if you still have any left from buying camera gears. If not, they take either left or right foot too. (or $180-$530) for this

What the heck? So I decided to build my own :) why not ?

HOW:

Material list:

+ Aluminum 1/8" x 1.5" x 36" ($9)

+ Epoxy or any metal glue ($5) (Optional)

+ 3 x 1/4" screws and 1 nut

+ Washers (metal and rubber - I cut my old belt for rubber washer)

Tool list:

+ Precision ruler

+ Marker

+ Something to cut the aluminum with. I would have use my all time favs dremel. But I decided to go "pro" and use the real tools at work.

Cutting:

Follow these cuts in the drawing for L plate and I plate. The washers are optional. If you can find some that meet your needs then save time. Be very careful bending aluminum. A sharp tight corner will crack it faster than you can blink.

Marking and get ready to cut.

Here are the parts after cut / pre-assembly:

BOM:

+ Cut Aluminum parts

+ 3 Screws: 1 cut short, 1 long, 1 with plastic head

+ Washers: 3 small, 1 large, 3 rubber, 1 retaining washer

Assembly:

I have long screw go thru small washer, bottom L plate, small washer, then retaining washer.

Rotating joint has plastic screw go thru top L plate, plastic, large, plastic washer I plate then nut.

Camera mount has short screw, small washer, I plate then another plastic washer. This screw is a little special :). It's the long screw got cut down from 2 ends. Notice that once the swing arm go all the way down, the shot screw head can go in between 3 washers gap.

Completed assembly.

Completed assembly on tripod

With my old N65 try out.

Tada. Finished this thing a little late and haven't get time to try it out. It's a fun fast, easy project.

So I just got time to try this unit out. It's wobble a little due to the hight of L plate and the material itself. The top portion of L plate and I plate can get down from 9" to about 7" (if you are not planning on using anything other than Tokina 11-16mm). Other than that, it gives a good set of pics that stitches very well in Hugin. Here's example:

Revisit: San Francisco Pier 7

I had a post about this location before here but SF is a heaven for traveller, photographer. Places don't grow each day. You just never finish discover this city. Even the same place looks different at the revisit.

I stop by this place a little late this time. After sunset so it's hard to take good pics of the city. It's completely dark. So I got just these two

Both with D90

Using Tokina 11-16mm

Exposure: 20

Aperture: f/3.2

Focal Length: 11 mm

Exposure Bias: +1/3 EV

Using Sigma 105mm

Exposure: 10

Aperture: f/9.0

Focal Length: 105 mm

ISO: 200

Exposure Bias: +1/3 EV

Chicago's Bean

What: It's Chicago Bean in Chicago Millennium park. I've been wanting to go here ever since I came accross it Flickr. Finally had a change to drop by Chicago for a day. That's all I ever wanted :)

When: I was there on mid Aug 2009, walking around the park the day . Check out the city online before you head there. Tons and tons of things to do. I think the city really shows off her beauty by sunset. OR maybe I'm just the sunset person (or maybe I never get up early enough for sunrise to be liking it). Anyway, this shot was about 8:00 pm. It was after sunset and dark. I think it'd be nice to be there around July or so for the Lurie garden flower shots.

Here's a day picture of the bean:

Here's a night picture of the 1 of the port within walking distance from Millenneum park with a little help from PS:

Where: I was standing at the corner of the bean in order to get the bean and the whole city light. Also if you can, come to the corner of Monroe and Columbus, look toward the Pavilion at night. It's beautiful.

How: I used my Nikon D90, Tokina 11-16mm for whole view of the city, Nikkor 18-105mm sometime during the day for zoom as needed, and Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 for some night shot, and Sigma 105mm macro in Lurie garden. AND tripod!!! I had a really hard time for not bringing 1 due to its size. BRING TRIPOD BY ALL MEAN.

Here's why I brought macro lens

Palace of Fine Arts San Francisco

What: Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco

When: I was bored on Sat night so my cousins and I headed up to SF around 1am. Not that I recommend taking picture of SF at 1 am. I think sunset would be the best time for any city light pictures. That's when all the lights are on yet the sky still give enough light on buildings for a perfect picture. So these are in complete darkness.

Where: If you do a search "Palace of Fine Arts San Francisco" on google you get this location easily. If you go from Lombard st, make a right onto Lyon st. It's VERY easy to miss this turn so get your GPS with you. There are few nice location around this place. Either park along the lake or make a left to get into the parking lot and walk into the building. BTW, you be seeing some raccoon if you get there late enough.

How:

Gear: I brought all my gear with me (just in case) but ended up only use D90 (of course) and Tokina 11-16mm with a little of 18-105mm. Some serious tripod. I had with me Manfrotto 055XDB with 808CR4. This tripod set did a great job BUT when I tried to do a wide capture of the ceiling, it didn't let me go low as I wanted. If you have tripod that let you go as low as 8in or so would be better. I ended up had the camera lay on the ground on top of my jacket in order to get this one

Settings: I set as follow:

Exposure:	8
Aperture:	f/10.0
Focal Length:	11 mm
Exposure:	0.00
ISO Speed:	200
Exposure Bias:	+1/3 EV
Flash:	No Flash

With WB set to K=2600 (lowest). If you have some kind of wired or wireless remote, bring it. You'd save time from waiting for timer to go off.

I did all the shoots in RAW and Normal Large. .

Process : Didn't do much on this set. Only open raw in PS and playing with the color a bit. Also did a filter Fractalius on this 1