Approaching the Scene 133: Advanced Panorama Setup & Free Nodal Measures

today is some fun stuff for the pano shooters out there or the pano curious we'll talk about how and why you might want to use an advanced setup like this when you don't need it when you do need it how to set it up how to use it plus i'll share some brand new free no parallax measurements for new camera bodies and lenses so stick around it's going to be fun [Music] okay so what's on deck for today i'm going to talk about some things that i think can be valuable to the most seasoned panorama photographer as well as someone who's just started kind of considering it or just done a few hand-held sort of simple panoramas i get i get a ton of questions about the setup for this larger advanced multi-row or tilted panorama rig and i'm going to talk about how i set it up when i use it when i don't use it and i'll talk about both for for the fluid heads that i love as well as ball heads and a little spoiler alert you're going to use a lot less with a fluid head than with a ball head but there are times when i use it with my fluid head as well so i'll talk about how i set it up how i use it why when i'm putting out a whole new list of no parallax points for people that shoot the z6 z7 z62 z72 their native lenses and the new 14 to 24 2.8 i've had a lot of requests for that also if you have that list and i updated a lens in there that i think i measured a little bit wrong when i gave that out free before so i'll give you that link and then finally i'm going to talk a little bit about a really killer little phone mount for anybody who wants to use their phone for more long exposure photography or just have a really nice tool that lets you read your phone easier when you're you know using your hands for something else so kind of a cool multi-use tool all right and again as always there's a chapter time code on the bottom if you just scroll along the bottom of the time code you'll see it's chaptered out you can see what part of the video you want to watch or re-watch links to everything i'm talking about including that new nodal or no parallax point measurement guide for the nikon z users is in the video description along with links to all the stuff that i'm talking about affiliate links that help me out thanks for using those uh and a table of contents with index time code so just click on whatever part of the video you want to watch that's all in the video's main description just click on the title of the video or show more depending on your platform you'll get in there and you'll see all that stuff all right so so let's jump in let's talk about why you would use one of these systems and i'll talk about why i want to use it with a fluid head versus why i want to use it with a ball head and and why you sometimes don't need it so and then i'll show you how it sets up so you've got a base rail here and a way to pan level beneath it uh some people are asking me well do i need a painting clamp below it and i think generally not i'll tell you why when we talk about setting this thing up and we talk about the ball head if you have a fluid head absolutely not you know i i like the manfrotto 500 h with the kirk bridge assembly it just makes this whole process a little easier and you you've got a flat arca rail here and then a vertical rail with a panning clamp and that painting clamp will clamp the nodal rail that your camera's mounted to i'm using the kirk lrp three adjustable nodal rail that i kind of worked with them to design so that it works both for short lenses and long lenses without getting in the way when you're doing panoramas and that's the the rail that i'm using in that guide that you can download for free you just clamp it in here at the panorama position for your given lens and focal length and you can tilt this thing let's say you're sitting up on the edge of an escarpment i've done a lot of panoramas up on the top of mount st helens looking down its crater to the north you can tilt so that you've got that crater rim and get in your nodal position because that rim's really close to you and you've got all the way way out to mount rainier and infinity that you want to look like it's all in focus at the same time and you pin level so it's drawing a perfect row right and if you want to do if you've got clouds moving quickly through your scene you can even do something like shoot the cloud shoot shoot the mid ground shoot the foreground if you're doing multi-row shift to the right shoot shoot shoot shift to the right shoot shoot shoot shift to the right that way you're not doing a row with the clock and then it's hard to blend because those clouds are moving if you just shoot in sort of a serpentine pattern makes it really easy to do multirow makes it easy to look up at something and shoot a pano and you're moving that tilted thing straight across not in a big rainbow we'll talk about that in a minute with with ball heads and how that can get a little difficult to do with a ball head and it's staying directly over your measured nodal axis it's rotating through that that no parallax point in your lens it's tilting through that without moving forward or backward of the axis of rotation of the head now the beautiful thing with a fluid head is that it it pans from beneath you level this from beneath and every movement of the head stays level so you don't have to worry about about having a panning clamp at the top you just clamp this rail in now the only time i'm really going to worry about this is if i've got something close in the foreground and something distant that i want to to not have parallax you know if parallax is something you haven't heard of before grab my ebook it's cheap i have an ebook on simple panoramas it'll explain the process and then if you want to go into complex panos like what we're talking about here i have a whole course advanced panoramas it's not expensive it's linked in the video's description and it'll tell you everything that we're talking about but i've had a lot of people ask me questions and this channel is completely driven by what all of you want to know more about and the most one of the most frequent panoramic questions i get is you know how do i set up the advanced rail system and i i can't lay it out perfectly because everybody's system is going to be a little bit different and your head might be different but for those of you who have adopted my fluid head system this is the way to do it you know you just you just put that flat rail the vertical rail the painting clamp you don't need any kind of a painting clamp down below because the head is panning level for you you just use the head like it's a rock solid panning clamp all right so that done let's talk about ball heads for a second so now i've got my acrotech gxp ball head here and and i'm going to suggest if you're going to do panoramas and you have a ball head and it does it has a panning mechanism down below the ball i'd suggest you get a leveling adapter under your tripod you know if you've got a tripod with a center column like this i replaced this this ben rose tripod with a really short center column and i put um kirk's really really lightweight little leveling adapter in here and then if you level your tripod head's base so that that pan down below is perfectly level now that's level and then open up your tripod and take a look at the with with the aquatech it's easy because i got such a big beautiful bubble level right on that clamp now all of a sudden when i pan i'm getting that same kind of level pan that i would get with the fluid head now i have to level twice i got to level the the clamp and i have to level the base of the tripod for that to happen alternatively you can get a panning clamp for the top but that's going to really throw you off if you want to pan anything but perfectly level you know the minute that you tilt the ball to get to get that thing level and start if you want to tilt the camera down it'll work with a system like this i'll show you what i'm talking about in a minute i'm getting the cart before the horse a little bit this will work perfectly for this system and if you had a panning clamp and you've got a setup like this for doing multi-row and complex panos it'll work just fine to put a panning clamp on top of your ball head just level that painting clamp as long as long as where you're panning is level and you have the system it's going to work just like i showed you it worked with the fluid head maybe not quite robust a connection and everything but it's working just fine where it really becomes different is when you when you're not working with a complex panorama you don't have anything close in the foreground you're shooting a beautiful mountain range and and you're using a wide angle lens and nothing's closer than 10 feet away from you you just want to bang out a pano and you're not so worried about having a perfect no parallax point measurement you don't want to throw all this stuff on the tripod most of the time i'm not putting this whole setup on my fluid head and and that's where the fluid head really comes in and shines you know i when i'm using my fluid head i'm usually using well i'm always using my nodal rail because that's how i get balanced on my fluid head let's let's just take this guy off for a second and talk about it here if i and i'll show you how i assemble that in a second but if i'm working with my fluid head by contrast and i've got my nodal rail in here to do that sort of i use it to just get nice and balanced i'll loosen my my my tilt and get to where the camera is nice and balanced almost gimbal-like and if i let go it's not going to do any kind of flopping or anything that's the beauty of using that kind of setup with this kirk um bridge assembly and the lrp3 lit rail now all of a sudden if i want to do a panorama and it's relatively level even if it's complex i can i can grab the uh the document that i'm giving out for free to all of you guys and say well the 14 to 24 at 14 millimeter should be 147 millimeters and i'll slide out to 147 millimeters and lock it now that's no longer balanced if i let go the fluid is going to slow it down it doesn't crash but it will it is back heavy now but it's set and all i got to do is flip to vertical and boom i'm set you know lock my my tilt as long as i'm not tilted too much i'm going to do a perfect panorama easy peasy if it's a single row and it's relatively level i don't have to get any other equipment out i'm going to be level because i'm leveled from beneath this head if it's not a complex panorama i'm not even going to worry about that nodal adjustment and i can actually tilt and do multi-row boom you know it's all going to be working level no matter what i do this head stays level so i could shoot tilt shoot tilt shift tilt shoot tilt up shoot tilt up shift i can do that work without having that whole thing and i've had a lot of people ask that question you know it what what is the the the need for that with this head well if you're working in a situation where you do have close and far elements and you are worried about parallax the minute that you tilt you're tilting that lens out to the point where it's way out off of the measurement that you made for where the no parallax point is you can no longer rely on not having parallax because you've shifted forward to the axis of rotation you're shifting forward or you're shifting behind it the lens is almost completely behind the axis of rotation now you know you have to sort of stay balanced over that axis of rotation that's where that three-dimensional multi-piece unit comes in for a fluid head shooter it's so simple to do panoramas as long as you're not terribly worried about parallax even if you are worried about parallax you can just shift to your adjustment if it's single row and you're not very tilted it's just fine the minute you start really wanting to tilt and do multi-row and you've got close and far objects that's when you jump into the bigger system so let me show you how to set and it's just more complicated with the ball head the minute you start tipping with the ball head you've got to be really really sure that you're level beneath the head you're level at the clamp but the minute that you tilt a ball head here and decide you want to do a tilted panorama you've got to make sure that that base unit is level and then you're going to you can't as nearly as easily do that kind of perfect you can't just tilt in isolation from your pan it shifts around the minute you loosen the whole thing is floppy so doing that kind of precise shoot shoot over shoot down shoot down shoot you're gonna need that assembly with the vertical rail and the secondary vertical clamp in order to just be precise when you're doing your multi-row work all right and if you're gonna tilt and you have a panning clamp atop your head let me show you what happens there so during the little break i just had i flipped this this ball head upside down the gxp lets you pull the clamp off the top mount the ball straight to your tripod or leveling adapter and then mount the clamp to the panning base so it essentially it becomes like a panning clamp where it can pan perfectly level and i think a lot of people set up their tripods with a panning clamp up top thinking well i can easily do panoramas as long as i have that level panning clamp and i level my painting clamp well right now this painting clamps level and yes indeed it does a perfect level pan just as if i were panning with my fluid head the problem is when you lose nothing you want to tilt down to shoot that mount st helen's crater rim and now all of a sudden when you pan you're panning up to the sides it's like a it's like a rainbow as you pan it's no longer level at all you can't do that with this setup you need to leave that pan down beneath level the head below level the clamp at the top and then pan from below while you're tilted and again it's just really hard to do those adjustments for multi-row so the ball head is a is a tool that is going to require you to use this kind of system for multi-row or tilted panoramas to be precise all right so i'm kicking the ball head as much as i love that gxp off to the side to talk about what i really really like to use to capture panoramas that's the fluid head i think the fluid head is just an amazing tool for shooting long lenses and action photography for shooting landscapes and stills where you just want to make precise adjustments and stay level no matter what you do and also for panoramas i want to talk a little bit about this setup how you take these pieces that are linked in my advanced panorama setup and put them together to set up your panorama with the uh to set up to set up your advanced panorama system so you're gonna have this base plate it's just an arca rail it's like a just just a rail it is double used a lot of them are double dovetailed you're going to drop it in your clamp of your tripod i'm advocating the fluid head but you want to drop it in the clamp leave it so that the bubble level is on your left there's a little bubble level usually on a good one of these the ones i link have bubble levels on them then you're going to take the vertical rail that you have and mount there's a vertical rail has an arca clamp so that it clamps onto that rail standing straight up vertical and on the top of it you want to mount a panning clamp here i have a really right stuff levered panning clamp and that's going to be vertical that's going to what's going to let you tilt and you want to use more than one screw so i put one big screw right through the center and then there's another screw coming in from the back that goes in and locks that so it can't move whatever panning clamp you have whatever vertical rail they shift they vary even the same ones that i link often can be a little bit different really right stuff makes a bunch of different versions of this but there should be a way that you can go down to your true value hardware store get the right screws and put it together and you're going to mount that so that it's flush i put my finger up here i just make sure it's perfectly flush as i clamp it that way it's consistent i just make it right there on that edge and then whatever camera you're using so so when you're setting this whole thing up whether you're using your ball head or whether you're using your fluid head you want to level the whole system so right now i'm leveling my fluid head this is what i love about this leo photo leveling adapter that i've got this new one because i can keep both hands on the head and just use a finger and tighten that wing and then you want to make sure that you're leveling it up top too that's where the little bubble level on that rail comes in and you're going to lock it so that you can't tilt so now everything you're doing you're panning perfectly level on this base rail this is going up perfectly vertical and then you're going to take your well we've still got to attach the camera right now but your lrp3 rail or whatever nodal rail you have you know i'm going to go in at 147 degrees for my 147 millimeters for my nikon 14 to 24 at 14 millimeters lock that in place there's a little knob to lock that tilt but you see how that becomes your tilt all of a sudden that panning clamp is tilting the camera and then you're going to take the base part of your l bracket where you would normally set up for a landscape oriented horizontal shot and clamp it into that nodal rail set to go that's how it works now a lot of people ask me how do i get the camera centered well today's mirrorless or live view cameras make that a cinch just simply flip your screen up if you've got a flip screen use a step ladder if you don't or set up really low and turn your camera pointed straight down turn it on have a look and center your sensor you know you're seeing a readout of your sensor put your grid view on your display and just center that little screw that's holding your clamp down onto the top of your head just dial that center of that screw in boom you'll know you're perfect and then what i like to do is i'll either take a scribe and scribe a little mark on my horizontal rail or put it i got a little piece of gaff tape here and i also take a sharpie and right mine's 35 millimeters is where i like to put it so i've got a little 35 written here and sharpie on it so i put a piece of gaff tape i'll mark it with a scribe i don't care about marking it up and then you're going to be set just remember that measurement you set it up right there the next time and you're good to go so that's how you set up the multiple rail multi-row system they're not horrifically expensive the most expensive part is the clamp uh really right stuff has the patent on that clamp and aggressively defends it it's the best one out there it's expensive but it's worth it if you love to do this stuff you know again there's nothing more simple than you know say you're working on a beautiful scene with the clouds moving by quickly and you want to capture you know nine frames well my suggestion if those clouds are moving fast is shoot the lower one shoot the middle one shoot the upper one shift to the right shoot that one shoot down shoot that way shift to the right shoot that one shift that one shoot that one done and that way you know you're not shooting a row that has the clouds in it and then another row where they've moved and then another row or maybe there's a little bit of the clouds that's much easier to merge and have them look correct basically that's it for the advanced piano setup that's how i use it remember i've got those no parallax measurements for both the z6 and z7 the z6 and z72 and the 14 to 24 2.8 s i as i was measuring it there might be a millimeter or a half millimeter difference between the z62 and the z72 but it's so marginally different i don't think you're gonna have a problem with it if you check these measurements and you think they're slightly off let me know and i'll readjust but to me as i checked all the measurements the only lens that seemed off was the 24 to 70 and it made me wonder if maybe i had a beer in the afternoon when i was doing that or maybe i just wasn't seeing it quite right i re-measured with both cameras and i have new measurements in this downloaded pdf so disregard the old ones for the 24 to 70 everything else is the same with the addition of the 14 to 24 s and those will all work for the z6 2 z7 2 as well as the z6 and z7 you know my suggestion is put it in dropbox or google drive or your apple apple cloud icloud and make it available as a local document so i all i have to do is flip in here i have mine in google drive and it's always on my phone even if i'm not in cellular or wi-fi data range so handy to have with you at all times but again you know i'll tell you more often than not when i'm out in the field shooting pianos these pieces stay in my bag i'm just not using them that much that piece is always on my camera the nodal rail is how i balance my fluid head system so that my camera doesn't flop and then it's there if i want to do a pano and you know usually i'm not worried so worried that i can't do a little tilting and panning the fluid head just kind of does it all when i do need this the way i keep it is i leave that panning clamp mounted on the vertical rail i take the horizontal base rail clamp it kind of tightly in there loosen put it together so that whole thing is sort of one piece and i have a little f-stop bag and it goes in my backpack just in case i need it it's all in this one spot so that being said we were talking about having your phone with you with the things that you need out in the field and um you know sometimes we might actually want to shoot with our phone let's pull the camera off here for a second and this cool little phone holder folds up really really small it's a leo photo product they sent it to me and i thought hmm do i really need a phone mount but then i started playing with it and i realized it's actually extremely cool so it has an arca rail or an arca dovetail you can clamp it right into any arca clamp and then your phone it's just spring-loaded it's got a nice heavy spring you drop your phone in there multiple sizes will fit and it tilts up and down but it also rotates if you want to go vertical or horizontal boom like that but then the thing that i really really like about it the thing that i think is even more cool about it is that you can take it off there and the little arca plate just splits in half it's it's hinged so when it goes together it's an arca plate when it pulls apart it's a stand and while i'm having my coffee and eating my eggs in the morning i can sit and work with my phone in either landscape or portrait but i can be reading my email working with both my hands it just sits up nice it's just a nice little stand to have so i think it's a cool tool it's a it's a leo photo ps2 you know if you've got a tabletop tripod this is the leo photo uh what is it it's the mt zero two this has a cool little ball head and it's got you know all of a sudden i do a lot of little shots or or things on my desktop with either a camera that this this is just a really nice combination with that to hold your phone and do whatever kind of photography you want to do i'll put links to both of these this guy clicks into multiple positions like a like a big tripod would and folds up super super small so i'll put links to both these in the video description as well as my advanced panorama course these advanced panorama parts and of course there's no parallax measured points that i've got for the z6 z7 c62 z72 all right everybody so i want to thank everyone once again uh for for hanging in here for supporting this channel for steering the content with your questions and comments both in youtube and to me personally via email uh we're launching our long exposure project we've got an awesome group of people doing that this week actually starts up tomorrow's our first group meeting in two weeks i can't remember exactly let me look at my calendar really fast we're doing another office hours on february i believe it's going to be like the 16th let me just check my calendar fast february it's always on tuesdays february 16th 10 a.m pacific we're having an office hour is all about portraiture we'll talk about environmental portraiture versus headshot portraiture we'll talk about some lighting techniques we'll talk about tripod versus handheld uh rapport with the model we'll look through some of the great portrait work uh of the past century different portrait artists that rick lepage and i really really look up to and some of our own work at the same time and we'll talk and take your questions about all things photographic but in particular portraiture so sign up for that at hudsonhenry.com officehours i'm going to have a major update on workshops really soon i'm getting ready to launch yellowstone the tetons and moab in october 2021. cuba is slotted ready to go there's like one or two slots left in the second cuba workshop in november that's in between halloween and thanksgiving and be home for thanksgiving and costa rica we've actually moved to 2022 anybody that was excited about that it's just a little too close in in the summer when it's going to be great there with the virus and everything else so we're pushing it out to 2022 to keep everyone safe i don't want to endanger anyone there's also a southern oregon coast workshop coming very soon so more details on all that stuff if you want to sign up for cuba or for the uh the the big parks workshops just hit me up and there's actual sign ups online for cuba i'll put that in the video's description as well all right everybody i hope everyone is staying safe having fun being creative uh we'll and i hope you'll i'll see you in office hours uh on the 16th and thanks so much for all the comments questions and feedback that's what drives the content here and it makes it a joy to produce the stuff for you guys all right thanks everyone we'll see you next week

Channel: Hudson Henry Photography

Views: 4,845

Rating: 4.985765 out of 5

Keywords: Nikon, Z7, Z6, mirrorless, lesson, education, training, how to, gear, photography class, digital photography, depth of field, Approaching The Scene, Hudson Henry, z7ii, z6ii, fluid head, panorama, panoramic, panning clamp, ball head, advanced panorama, pano, tabletop tripod, phone mount

Id: UCtGGzMKcrQ

Length: 26min 42sec (1602 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 04 2021