Multi-row Pano Gear I Use 

Frank: Sounds like a wise decision. Travel has become such a pain, anything to lessen the weight helps.

Thanks, Isaiah!

Thanks, David. My pleasure.

Qassem: Sabah el kheer, sadiki! How are you? I hope all is well. It has been far too long. What are you doing now? Please go to my website and send me an email from there.

Not quite sure what you are asking. Feel free to send me an explanation to my website email address.

Hi Virginia. Good question, but unfortunately it would be difficult for me to give you the precise numbers you want without seeing your setup. It so much depends on what equipment you are using and what camera and lens combination. Having said that, please don't be concerned. There is nothing that you can mess up, except for your time. Follow the directions I gave in my nodal point video and you should be good to go. While some people seem to be able to nail the nodal points easily, for most of use it's a combination of determination and patience. If you'd like private instruction, please feel free to email me through my website. I can guide you through the process via Zoom. Best of luck!

Yes, I use a leveling base on my tripod. It saves a lot of time and frustration and I recommend them in my pano workshops.

Hi Johnny. Yes I aha used it for panos and will post some in a future blog on my website. Stay tuned.

Jim, I'm told that I am distantly related, but I never met the man, although I was heavily influenced by his work in my early years.

The rear lens element doesn't move in your zoom lens, thus the nodal point isn't changing.

I just put it on the agenda. Thanks for the suggestion. As soon as it warms a bit more we will record it.

@@lespicker you never did the video!

Lars: Thanks for writing. Your point is well taken. In fact, like you, my students/clients and I have tried many different setups. Functionality does differ in some cases, in our experience. Some are good, others not so much. The thing with RRS is that you can be guaranteed to get perfect machining every time. I sometimes resent having to spend so much on their equipment, but as a professional I just do not want to take chances.

Sheldon, my RRS pano gear is old, which is actually a testament to their quality. I have used it all over the world for at least the last 15 years. I bought the pieces when they were sold separately, but I wouldn't hesitate to buy one of their pano kits. I teach a workshop on pano photography and we exclusively use RRS gear.

Thanks for replying, I appreciate you coming back and taking the time to answer every comment individually :) Good job at picking the right parts, suits your name well! (See what I did there?)

Sorry, Jay. I had not realized that. But you were astute enough to figure that out, so thanks for the heads up.

@@lespicker I have a Nikon Z6 and I think the PG-01 might be a better fit and much lighter than the PG-02. Have you gone mirrorless yet?

@@gosman949 I am mirrorless, but I happily use the Fujifilm GFX medium format system now, after 50 years with Nikon (and Hasselblad digital).

No, not necessarily.

Hi Josh. Yes, a gimbal head can work. In fact, while my setup from Really Right Stuff is specifically for panos, I use it also as a gimbal when shooting wildlife. Saves me packing room and weight by not having to carry two setups. Works flawlessly for both.

There’s no wrong way, but basically it’s easier to add shots to the side in portrait mode, than to add a row in landscape orientation to get the same final image. It’s usually since you are moving from side to side, a portrait orientation gives you much more height. For example, if you took three landscape-oriented shots, you would have a very wide pano. But if you use portrait orientation, you could get the same width with maybe 4-5 shots, but get a lot more height as well. In the first example, you would need to readjust your equipment to get a second row above or below the first one to get the same image. Cheers!

Tim: Theoretically, a fluid head would be fine. However, you would want to be sure that you have graduated marks on the tripod and head that would allow you to accurately advance the setup as you pan. Of course you could just estimate overlap and that works fine, too.

@@lespicker Another negative would be figuring out the nodal point using a fluid head.

Good question. The issue is that if you simply raise or lower the entire tripod mount, while still keeping the tripod aiming straight ahead, there may not be enough overlap for a good multi row pano. There just isn't enough up and down movement. Tilting it up or down does cover more territory with each row.

Sorry Jinying, but the sound works fine for me and other viewers. Please try again.

Thanks for taking the time to comment, but I’m not understanding what you mean. Would you kindly explain your criticism more fully?

@@lespicker he pointed about a major flaw of your setup which is that in order to rotate the whole pano setup horizontally, you have to have your tripod perfectly leveled as well as your BH-55 which is a convoluted way to do so. You should have a panning clamp on top of the BH-55 in order to accomplish the same thing as the PG-02 HB (Horizontal Bar) bundled in the package setup sold by RRS

In other words, the PG-02 package sold by RRS consists of the same PG-02 VA you have which allows to rotate for vertical multirow, but also of the PG-02 HB Horizontal Bar which allows to pan horizontally. Since you don't have this last part because you built your own kit, you have the CB-10 10 inch bar clamped to the BH-55 ballhead. So in order to pan horizontally, you have to level both your tripod AND the ballhead independently. So what the person commenting above was saying, is that if you were to mount in some way your BH-55 upside-down, you would find yourself with a leveled panning clamp on top, allowing you to pan horizontally. Does this make sense?

In other words : When only Horizontal Pano are the goals (for correct panos; producing to stich strait continuous band already before any cropping - vs when un-levelled : stepped band producing lots of unusable "dents') and one has a ballhead, then use it "instead" of a leveling plate, or instead of (painstakingly) leveling a naked tripod. Since ballhead typically come with a rotating base (actually to be able to orient the nobs to where it feels best), this can / should be flipped so to be on top. So the ball is (ONLY) used to level (to your liking ! - here no need for buble-leveling). You dont need to worry (at all!) about putting up the tripod strait in the first place (other than hight and stability). And now since the pano-plate is on top (You can still orient the ball locking mechanism in your most convenient position!) put the camera on it (vertically in portrait orientation), but best on a nodal rail), and swing along. (Or; leave the ballhead as they are sold, in a mean way: made for you to buy an extra rotating solution to add on top of it, or worse; buy an extra entirely new device (business!).

Thanks, Andrew. Next time tell me what you really think about the video! Kidding aside, no instructional video is for everyone. Sorry it didn't work for you. Judging by the comments, it was helpful to hundreds of others. Out of 5,000 views yours was one of only 4 negatives. Different strokes for different folks. Anyway, thanks for watching.