Yes, Marry Christmas to you too Henrik..

You might be right about that.., I guess it all come down to price.. I find the RRS web site painful to navigate.. Never find anything.. Its full of words which is ok if you know the products.. I think their products are nice but they need to rethink their web site. Make it more visual..

My first NN3 was emm.. not the best but Bill Bailey made good on that and gave me a brand new NN4 with all the goodie bits and extras so his customer service is world-class.. Not saying RRS is not the same..

My VR Drive II is amazing but its really handy to have a manual pano head in the bag ready to go for the quick one off VRs or wide gigapixel panos.. No way I will keep my VR Drive in the car in the hot sun.. My NN4 is great for use with my D90 but I really need a bigger pano head for my D800 with 70-200 lens.. To be honest, I really found the increment options with my NN4 painful.. This one looks perfect with sooo many options.. But at the moment all priories are focused on lenses, partially the 70-200...

Have a happy day.. about 36c here at the moment and getting hotter.. Perfect Aus Christmas day.. ) Time to put dinner on and get merry..

Destiny..

Thank you for sharing this with us.

It all depends on what you call gigapixel..... I would not like to do manually a panorama with anything longer then a 24 mm lens. I know I have the discipline to do it, but it would drive me nuts and mistakes are bound to happen.

The best reason to try to do as much as possible with a manual head is the fact that you can easier make a vertical 180 degrees, so showing what is straight up and straigh down. If there is no need for that and it is important to have extreme detail horizontally, I would go for a motorized head. ... which unfortunately are not cheap of course.

Destiny wrote:

Hey.. Check this out.. I think its the best manual pano head that Nodal Ninja has come up with and its coming in Jan 2013. They listened to their costumers and came up with a great new rotor..

WOW, I want one!!!..

Destiny

"In January 2013 we will launch the new Ultimate M2 with the second generation RD8-II. The M2 is a design with many years of refinement; integrating years of feature requests from customers. It fills the gap in the Nodal Ninja product line for photographers wanting to produce high resolution panoramas, mosaics and gigapixel imagery using telephoto lenses  up to 700mm equivalent focal length with camera in landscape orientation, or 465mm equivalent in portrait orientation. Furthermore, it can act as a gimbal arm for smooth rotation of heavier telephoto lenses at its center of gravity.  The M2 can use either RD16-II or the new second generation RD8-II which incorporates precise click stops, with adjustable tension, at 30, 15, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2.5, and even 2 degree increments.

There are many advantages to shooting gigapixel images or large mosiacs with manual panoramic heads over robotics. The biggest advantage of course is weight of equipment and required power sources. The shooting sequences can also be much faster because of hands on direct positive control. Gigapixel imagery is a very fast growing segment in the market."

HansKeesom wrote:

Agree, gigapixels are wonderfull but not a market with lot's of paying customers.

Right. Clients rarely have a need for more than 4GPx. That´s why our standard-size is 700mpx (which is very good to handle): http://www.360impressions.de/KBogen1212/ to max. 4GPx for spheres providing deep zooms: http://360impressions.de/WuppZentral/Stadthalle.swf

The occasions for the higher - commercial - gigapixel-range are extremely rare. They need to be rather expensive being made in excellent quality. Tons of Gigapixels from nice landscapes are not of any interest for clients - we´re constantly in contact with advertising agencies, magazins and so on.
Advertising means photography related to products - gigapixels are extremely rare in that context. In fact the only one i know was an ad for Peugeot where the user could search a car in a gigapixel of London´s city. But the car was badly composed into the image.
Magazins are more likely interested - but they wouldn´t pay enough to justify big efforts in producing. So the only way would be distributing a giga to a bunch of magazins at the same time.

Gigapixels are nice. No questions. But commercially of minor interest.

best, Klaus

emm..... I wonder if you noticed the "Quotes" Klaus.. These are not my words,.. they are quoted from the Nodal Ninja newsletter as a sales pitch....

Destiny...

klausesser wrote:

Destiny wrote:

There are many advantages to shooting gigapixel images or large mosiacs with manual panoramic heads over robotics.

No.

Destiny wrote:

The biggest advantage of course is weight of equipment and required power sources.

Depends on how you need to shoot.

Destiny wrote:

The shooting sequences can also be much faster because of hands on direct positive control.

My Panoneed-head has an option for  single-shot-mode. That means: you can release every single picture manually - fine in surroundings with moving objects: watch the scene using the live-view resp. a field-monitor and fire the camera when the object has gone away.

The point is: the head nevertheless writes the xml in the usual way. You don´t have this option with manual heads.

Destiny wrote:

Gigapixel imagery is a very fast growing segment in the market."

Depends . . . . You´re using the NN and the VR2 now for quite a long time - can you show us a gigapixel which you did commercially?

best, Klaus

Well, I wouldn't either. I am in the process of buying a 70-200 as a starting point for getting into gigapixel panos but I sure wouldn't want to capture a large images doing it this way.. I would most defiantly use my VR Drive.. But, I can still see an advantage of doing smaller GP panos using a manual head with finer increments... We often go out for a drive where each situation is different.. Until I buy my zoom lens I am still guessing since I have never done one..

Destiny...

HansKeesom wrote:

Thank you for sharing this with us.

It all depends on what you call gigapixel..... I would not like to do manually a panorama with anything longer then a 24 mm lens. I know I have the discipline to do it, but it would drive me nuts and mistakes are bound to happen.

The best reason to try to do as much as possible with a manual head is the fact that you can easier make a vertical 180 degrees, so showing what is straight up and straigh down. If there is no need for that and it is important to have extreme detail horizontally, I would go for a motorized head. ... which unfortunately are not cheap of course.

Destiny wrote:

Hey.. Check this out.. I think its the best manual pano head that Nodal Ninja has come up with and its coming in Jan 2013. They listened to their costumers and came up with a great new rotor..

WOW, I want one!!!..

Destiny

"In January 2013 we will launch the new Ultimate M2 with the second generation RD8-II. The M2 is a design with many years of refinement; integrating years of feature requests from customers. It fills the gap in the Nodal Ninja product line for photographers wanting to produce high resolution panoramas, mosaics and gigapixel imagery using telephoto lenses  up to 700mm equivalent focal length with camera in landscape orientation, or 465mm equivalent in portrait orientation. Furthermore, it can act as a gimbal arm for smooth rotation of heavier telephoto lenses at its center of gravity.  The M2 can use either RD16-II or the new second generation RD8-II which incorporates precise click stops, with adjustable tension, at 30, 15, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2.5, and even 2 degree increments.

There are many advantages to shooting gigapixel images or large mosiacs with manual panoramic heads over robotics. The biggest advantage of course is weight of equipment and required power sources. The shooting sequences can also be much faster because of hands on direct positive control. Gigapixel imagery is a very fast growing segment in the market."

Destiny wrote:

My NN4 is great for use with my D90 but I really need a bigger pano head for my D800 with 70-200 lens.. To be honest, I really found the increment options with my NN4 painful..

Nodal Ninja say about the NN4:

"NN4 is designed to accommodate a wide range of lenses from ultra wide to 100mm focal lengths (35mm equivalent focal length assuming 25% overlap)."

And now I have one I see how it is well designed to cope with exactly that range of lenses, equally it will not really cope with longer focal lengths because of the fixed lock increments on the pitch axis.

Last edited by mediavets (2012-12-26 14:39:31)

Destiny wrote:

Well, I wouldn't either. I am in the process of buying a 70-200 as a starting point for getting into gigapixel panos but I sure wouldn't want to capture a large images doing it this way.. I would most defiantly use my VR Drive..

Watch out for zoom and/or focus creep with zoom lenses at higher +/- pitch values when shooting panos particularly with robotic heads.

Destiny wrote:

Yes, I have read about focus creep before.. So what lens do they use to capture this... http://www.kolor.com/blog-en/2012/11/20 … pano-giga/

Destiny..

According the description:

" it actually consists of 1920 pictures taken with the Canon 7D and a 400mm lens both mounted on Gigapan Epic Pro."

Destiny wrote:

Andrew, i do not believe it to be unreasonable and/or unsubstantiated since it will do it.. But it will take a lot more time to achieve it.

And that's not an advantage is it? NN is claiming that using the manual head has advatages over a robotic head for gigpixel and large mosaic panos.

I could never do it with the rotor on my NN4 since the increments are so big.. 15 degrees I think..

It's only the pitch axis on the NN4 that is restricted to 15 degree increments, with locks.

The range of click-stop options on the yaw axis depends on the rotator chosen.

Many times we have been down to the big lake and wished we cold use smaller increments to capture a wide pano.. My 14-25 made a huge difference with that but if I put it to portrait, I am back to needing smaller increments.. It is a sales pitch that has merit, so most certainly not an unsubstantiated claim.... By the time I put my D800 and 14-24 onto my NN4 its quite weighty.

The fixed 15 degree pitch increments on the NN4 are fine for 14-25mm focal lengths with camera (either DX or FX sensor) in portrait orientation:

http://www.vrwave.com/panoramic-lens-database/nikon/

Last edited by mediavets (2012-12-26 16:30:41)

klausesser wrote:

Since i have the final vesrion of the Panoneed

Will the Panoneed robotic head be offered for sale soon?

Yes Andrew, you are right... It's only the pitch axis on the NN4 that is restricted to 15 degree increments. its a pain!!!. The R16 Rotor is really nice so I often thought it wold be nice if it was mounted on the pitch axis but its way to hight for that but the new one is much slimmer.. I wonder if its a case of taking the rings out to change the increments, hope not.. I would love to have one to play and test....

Destiny..

Destiny wrote:

Yes Andrew, you are right... It's only the pitch axis on the NN4 that is restricted to 15 degree increments. its a pain!!!.

In what way do you find it a pain. And with what camera/lens combo?
............

I found this brief description of the functionality of the upper rotator on the Ultimate M2 on the NN web site:

"Upper rotator with laser marked index ring with fine 2.5° intervals.
Upper rotator upgradeable (optional) with precise positive stops up to 1.5° finest intervals."

There is no further information about this optional upgrade to provide precise positive stops at 1.5 degree intervals.

The R16 Rotor is really nice so I often thought it wold be nice if it was mounted on the pitch axis but its way to hight for that but the new one is much slimmer.. I wonder if its a case of taking the rings out to change the increments, hope not.. I would love to have one to play and test....

Destiny..

No, the RD-8II rotator does not use detente rings. It's smaller than the RD-16 because it offers fewer click-stop options (but it is heavier and more expensive).

RD-16/16II offers precise click stops at 120°, 90°, 60, 45°, 36°, 30°, 24°, 20°, 18°, 15°, 12°, 10°, 7.5°, 6°, 5°, 3.75°

RD-8II offers precise click stops at 30°, 15°, 6°, 5°, 4°, 3°, 2.5°, 2°

http://store.nodalninja.com/index.php/p … -head.html

I found this brief review of the Ultimate M2 on the web site of Red Door VR, the NN distributor in the UK:

http://www.red-door.co.uk/Nodal-Ninja-U … eview.html

Last edited by mediavets (2012-12-27 11:11:56)