{"id":9608,"date":"2025-05-20T15:50:01","date_gmt":"2025-05-20T15:50:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/?p=9608"},"modified":"2025-05-20T15:59:40","modified_gmt":"2025-05-20T15:59:40","slug":"modifying-a-diy-panorama-head-a-technical-post-actual-photos-to-follow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/?p=9608","title":{"rendered":"Modifying a DIY panorama head – a technical post – actual photos to follow"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This close-up panoramic view was taken using a DIY panoramic head:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Nearscape garden photo using 7 photos taken with a 27mm lens<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Over 10 years ago I made (bodged?) my own panorama head to enable me to take close-up panoramas that I call Nearscapes<\/a>. These are of two types: wide angle views and 360\u00ba full circle panoramas (these I tend to show using ‘virtual tour’ software as shown on this page<\/a>). The panorama head is used to minimise parallax. Parallax is the effect when the background moves in relation to the foreground as the camera pivots around to record the scene – this can cause problems stitching the individual images together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I wanted close-up views, a full-size camera would have been too large so I made this to use with a compact camera – at the time a Canon Powershot S100 (a lovely camera apart from a weakness of the lens barrel jambing – which killed it in the end). I then modified it for the replacement camera: a Lumix LX15. This worked well until it suffered a few unfortunate incidents that degraded the quality. As there were no modern compact cameras that I liked I bought the then newly released Fuji X-M5 – their smallest (and cheapest!) X-series camera – which is compatible with my other Fuji lenses and equipment. Now it was time to modify the pano head again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But which lens do I choose? Fortunately I made it adjustable to allow parallax correction when setting it up. This has enabled me to use it with 3 of the smaller lenses: A Fuji XF 27mm, a Pergear 10mm fish-eye (a cheap lens) and the camera’s XC 15-45mm kit lens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For adjusting the camera\/lens combination I use 2 pencils about 10 inches apart taped to a piece of wood. Below I show some of the set up photos and some views of the pano head itself:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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10mm lens setup stitched from 3 alignment photos<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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15mm lens setup stitched from 3 alignment photos<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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27mm lens setup stitched from 3 alignment photos<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The way I do the alignment is to take 3 images with the pencils lining up in the centre of the image then swing the camera from one side to the other checking that they still line up. If not, I move the camera back and forth over the pivot point. This shows what the out of alignment looks like for the 27mm lens:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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3 images showing misalignment with the camera too far forward<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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3 images showing misalignment with the camera too far back<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This is an iterative process making adjustments and checking as we go. These next 2 photos show alignment in progress:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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View of the camera on the DIY pano head with the pencils taped to a block of wood<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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Photographers view of the camera on the DIY pano head with the pencils taped to a block of wood<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Below I show some images of the pano head with and without the camera<\/p>\n\n\n

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Pano head on a flexible table-top tripod without the camera<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n
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Pano head on a flexible table-top tripod with the camera<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n
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Underside of the mechanism showing the swivel and mounting. The alignment points for the 3 lenses are marked with silver paper.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Yes, it all looks a bit Heath Robinson but does it work? Some examples are in the next post…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This close-up panoramic view was taken using a DIY panoramic head: Over 10 years ago I made (bodged?) my own panorama head to enable me to take close-up panoramas that I call Nearscapes. These are of two types: wide angle views and 360\u00ba full circle panoramas (these I tend to show using ‘virtual tour’ software … Continue reading “Modifying a DIY panorama head – a technical post – actual photos to follow”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,90,50,71,69,3,65,131],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-close-up","category-fish-eye-lens","category-nearscapes","category-panoramas","category-photo-diy","category-photography","category-technical","category-tests-and-trials"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9608"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9641,"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9608\/revisions\/9641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}