Hello there everyone,
Finally I had a bit of time to experiment with my new DSLR and the fisheye lens that I bought a month ago.
I experimented a bit with "traditional" photography with the fisheye ( really enjoyable to shoot with ) and practising with the DSLR itself, since I'm still an amateur.

So I read a lot on the forum and I tried to have do a full 360x180 shot and so far results are not that bad ( see picture below )

http://i47.tinypic.com/wk3i2t.jpg

Except for some stitching problems ( bottom right mostly ) since I did a custom bracket I can't complain at all

http://i46.tinypic.com/avk6kw.jpg
This is my lovely custom bracket

Since I would like to improve my shots by adding the nadir and the zenit I need a more accurate annd well built custom bracket, but I saw around that there are some solutions that can solve my problems. Basically with my bracket if I try to add the nadir and the zenit using my bracket it fails to stitch properly because of the NPP, so something more accurate is needed.

Now I need to decide a couple of things:
1. Build a custom bracket by myself ( I need to check if I can find some linear guides not so expansive and a rotative base to get a proper angle between the shots and to attach everything solid to the tripod )
2. Buy an available bracket on the web

Right now my 20€ tripod needs to be replaced with a more stable and better buikld one, so around where I live I found a guy that build them in Aluminium, so for sure it'll be more stable ( price is around 50€ without any "head" to place the camera on, just the "rod" with the screw on the top to attach the actual head...the "head" itself + the tripod is around 100€ )

Now I took a look at the Nodal Ninja  MKII that is available for 210$ ( without the leveling base and the nadir addition ) wich is fair enough.
I found the Panosaur head for around 140$ ( shipping included ) but it says that is not really suitable for the fisheye lenses, but I honestly didn't fully understand why is not suitable, since it looks very similar to the NN3 MKII
Last I found on Amazon the pano-MAXX 360x180 which is very very similar to the NN3 §( price is 190$ )

Now I would like to order the NN3 MKII since it seems the good deal ( don't want to order the Panosaur to find out later that is not the optimal solution ) but there some questions:
The Leveler is really needed? I suppose that what it does of course is leveling the camera in order to have the perfect alignment both horizontal and vertical....but is really needed?
The nadird adapter: basically it flips by 180°...so if I flip the vertical bracket by 180° it would be the same thing I suppose...is just a matter of doing things easier...
One thing I notice ( see the nadir addition example pictures ) is that the entire bracket with the camera attach tends to bend a little bit due to the camera weight...since I'm really worried about the NNP I don't want to buy something that needs to be fixed later on because of stability problems )

Basically I will use my equipment to do 360x180 shots of interiors for hotels/apartments, that is my main goal, and to achieve a good result I know that I need a better bracket to ensure stability and no NNP problems to my shots

What would be the best deal for you? do you think that just the NN3 MKII itself is enough or the leveler would be a good choice as well?

Best regards to anyone

Nicolas

Last edited by RT-Visualization (2013-01-02 11:56:22)