For those saying this is too long, please understand that this is the level of detail someone would go into when you're in a workshop and a professional photographer is teaching you. The fact that Lester is putting this up for free on UA-cam is very kind of him. I certainly learned a lot. Thank you Les!
Vaibhav, thank you for understanding. I do tend to go into detail and in today's world there are many people who have little time and patience. I understand that my videos are not for everyone. Fortunately, nearly 3,000 people "liked" the video so far and only 85 gave it a thumbs down. I hope you have subscribed and will continue to watch. Please let me know if there are any photography subjects you would like me to cover.
It is even simpler that this. You only need to do it once if you use the same camera and lens. After you find the point you can mark your lens where it is and refer to the mark next time to set it up in seconds.
When you go to a "workshop" you have paid for a verbose trainer to make you think you are getting your money's worth by taking 5x the time a concise person needs to communicate an idea. People like this is why UA-cam has 1.25/1.5 playback speeds.
Thank you very much. People say it is to long, it isn't this is the best tutorial I ever have seen on UA-cam about setting up the equipment to make panorama photos and everything is well explained in detail ( finally) again thanks.
wasted a solid hour trying to set up the nodal point on a nodal ninja. then watched this video. then set up the nodal point in 20 seconds. HUGE thanks!!
I was just curious about the term "nodal point". No interest in Panos or the equipment necessary. However once you started teaching I was in for the full video. VERY WELL DONE.
Hello Mr. Picker. I watch your videos whenever I find time. These are very useful and instructive videos for us. I would like to thank you for sharing your experiences that you got with many years. There is an idiom that says: If the tree has a lot of fruit, it bends. I wish I had met and worked with you before.
Shukran, Sadeeki. Thank you for your very kind comments. I also thank you for the idiom. It is always good to keep this in mind as we walk through life. Now that we have met we can work together from now on... still a blessing.
That was an amazing lesson. I made my first attempt at a pano today, and after seeing how Photoshop struggled with it, I clearly didn't know the information in this video. Many thanks Lester!
Lester, first time I have come across your videos. Also, today I received what I thought was the final piece of gear for my new tripod. I now stand corrected. I need at least a focusing rail to do the nodal point stuff you just taught me. Very straightforward and properly explained. Thanks very much.
Absolutely phenomenal instruction! Really trying to get into landscape photography, and for the weeks of "instructional" videos I've watched, this is hands down the most thorough in picking a technical topic and explaining the reasons behind and methodologies for achieving desired results.
You are welcome, Alain. Best oif luck with your panos. You may want to check out this blog: lesterpickerphoto.com/2020/02/13/span-classwhitemulti-shot-panos/span/
Its refreshing to actually learn something about photography instead of getting the latest and greatest this and that rammed at us..Thanks for the information,its much appreciated
Thank you, Anthony! Stay tuned for my expanded UA-cam channel, coming this spring, dedicated to thoughtful, mindful photographers. No loud, fast-talking, in your face diatribes.
Best explanation of a seemingly complex procedure. You have made the complicated easy to understand and I thank you for that. This is a brilliant tutorial.
to be honest there are many tutorial out there that talk about shooting panoramic photo but so far this is the most ever , best explanation i ever seen . thank you very much . i wish there was a way to give your video a 5 star. thx GOD BLESS
The explanation was very good in fact i can't afford to buy a panoramic head now but with your explanation i was able to put together a diy type head (which has some minor limitations) check the pictures on this link. Thx GBU drive.google.com/drive/mobile/folders/0B1CoNFA5m66RVVZ4dHZ4VHVqa0E
Cedric: Thanks so much for sharing your setup. Looks ingenious, but the proof is in the image, and that image is spectacular. Congrats! If any of my viewers is interested in how one person has developed his own pano setup, please click on Cedric's link and see for yourself. Les
@@forkitover1 For someone who has a basic understanding of the subject matter - a lot of people don't and they can benefit from the whole video, so I wouldn't judge too harshly.
outstanding. the clearest explanation of this topic I've seen so far. Typically by the time someone is done explaining what the 'nodal point' is you really have no idea what they're talking about. good job.
Well, well done! Panorama is one of my favorite landscape forms and the one on your wall (seen at 2:16) is truly impressive. I started out carrying a 35mm camera and a Fuji GX617 , which I remember Galen Rowell kidding me about how much I carried with me. Now it is a Nikon D800 and the Really Right Stuff pano heads - and it's a LOT faster and lighter! Great Job!
Thank you, Gary. So, it's me who is impressed! Galen Rowell, one of my very favorite photographers. I still get sad at his untimely death. Anyway, that pano on our studio wall is 15 images across and 3 rows. It spans 25 feet. Taken in Iceland.
I can hardly believe that I was getting away with my "don't worry just take lots of overlaps " ever stitched together in photoshop. Then all of a sudden in the 2021 version of photoshop everything sopped working. This was a wonderful talk, and I thank you very much Lester..Outstanding. I only have a standard tripod so I am going to be up against it, but panoramas is where I am so I must resolve things .Most of my panoramas are about eight frames wide and I usually have a3 rows, and I have been using focal length far too wide at maybe 50mm equivalent. .
I like this video and very much appreciate the effort that went into it. What follows is a thank you rather than a compliant. Nodal points come from the "Gauss thick lens theory" and require a bit of optic theory to fully understand but the key point is the there are two; and one is the exit nodal point. The exit nodal point for photographic lens is always one focal length from the sensor when the lens is set an infinity. When the lens is not set to infinity is is at the image distance, which is not what is seen on the lens mount but requires some math to get. For example if focused on a pole at 5 meters a 500 mm lens image distance is going to be 0.5mm longer than the focal length so the the nodal point will be 1/2 mm off at infinity and about 1mm off for a 70mm lens under the same conditions. Clearly these errors are insignificant but are comparable with the errors from the simple method I suggest. 1) Nodal points are points about which you can rotate the lens and the image on the focal plane will not move. This is what they do and why they make image stitching work well. This what the two pole demo is looking to do. Thgey do not have to be perfect for most stitching programs to get a good join. 2) One nodal point is exactly (by definition) one focal length from the film plane when the lens is focused at infinity and the image distance away when focused closer. . Using this you can get very close to the nodal point by using a ruler and putting the center of the camera one focal length, as marked on the lens or its zoom ring, from the sensor mark on the camera body, when focused on a distant scene.
The best explanation on how to find the nodal point so far that I`ve come across. Thanks for taking time to do this. Hope i get some good shots this time around
Thank you, Satrajit! Best wishes and feel free to share your results with my viewers and readers of my blog. Send it to me via email from my website (lesterpickerphoto.com).
Great tutorial, thank you. The best part is at the end showing the taped pole 'get back in line' while shifting the camera back. Actually I found out practicing that you should start with poles aligned in one side (left or right) of the view finder then turn the camera (left to right or vice-versa) till the poles are in the other side of the viewfinder..... Then shift the camera back/forward to realign the poles. And BINGO, there's your nodal point/entry pupil in one single move, no need to turn back and forth . 😉
Excellent instructions on how to find the proper adjustment. For what it's worth, I enjoyed your conversational style of presenting the subject, you came across as very friendly.
Nice and clear explanation, for the more techy ones just make sure that the rotation point coincide with centre of the aperture leaves. Some principles as to to set up a gimbal head where you use the centre of gravity instead of the centre of the shutter leaves to balance the camera for two completely different shooting purposes, hence two different tripod heads; one to eliminate parallax and the other to make the camera/lens unit feel weightless, 99% of cases the two setup points are different as the two centres do not reside in the same place, the “C” bracket head can be used as a gimbal with great results whilst the gimbal can be set to pivot on the nodal point but it will be awkward to use.
Les, Great job on this tutorial. Very clear, concise and enough variation for people that it's usable in a lot of ways. Thank you for putting it together!
I am definitely an amateur but found this expanded my understanding of the lens / camera interaction and well worth the time spent. I think there's enough movement on the gimbal head mounts to facilitate this technique. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you for these clear and detailed explainations. All words were useful in my opinion. So many videos only talk about level adjustment or right angle marks and say nothing about the let's say "nodal point" fine adjustment. I am on my way to shoot some panos in the french Bassin d'Arcachon. So many nice views and skies to shoot there.
An excellent explanation of how to ascertain the nodal point for a given lens. Thank you, Lester! Your beautiful panoramic photography wall enlargements are stunning indeed, and certainly expemplify the Image Quality obtainable using the technique you describe. As I don't have the photographic equipment in this video, I was lucky to be able to create highly detailed panoramas, but much smaller enlargements (10"x36", for example), using 4 stitched 24 MP .tif images with a very sharp Fujinon XF35mm f/2 lens on an X-Pro2 vertically mounted on a decent Oben Carbon Fiber tripod. Of course, your technique and recommendation to make use of the lens' nodal point, besides beneficial for printing large, as you stated, also avoids the unfortunate necessity of losing image information in post-processing when cropping top-to-bottom across the image! Happy Holidays to you, sir!
Superb! ...And, as always, fine equipment makes a big difference. Add to that, waiting for the ideal time at exceptional locations and you're a pro. Thanks so much.
Thanks! I'm thinking of using this strategy a lot in the future. And as I noticed the key way to actually just set the nodal point with the two stick, it may actually be possible to put it up every time on the field using two strings attached to branches in line with the center of the position of the tripod where it is going to shoot the panorama! So this way you are capable of using this technique randomly with any lens at any focal length! You also can set it up with a more inexpensive tripod head. Yet it still need a specialized camera support to make it rigid, convenient and fluid. Amazing pictures on your walls!
Les, Great job. When you mentioned the vertical poles, I realized a similarity with aiming posts used by field artillery in the pre GPS day. Once a gun was pointed on the correct azimuth, a primary (an optical instrument.set close the the gun) and, secondary aiming points (two metal poles) were established. The aiming points allowed the gun to shoot a mission based on rotating to the left or right of the azimuth on fire. The gun then returns to the azimuth of fire. The vertical line in the gunner’s optics would be placed beyond the far vertical pole. We used the acronym NFL - Near Far Line - to help remember the order of the lines. Thanks. Jim
Hi Lester, your video was wonderful. I found the explanations easy to understand and will certainly help me a lot in this new phase of producing 360 panoramas. What I found coolest was the fact that I knew that you prefer to use telephoto lenses, I thought wide-angle ones would be better. Thank you very much for sharing your knowledge.
WOW... What a fantastic video Lester!! I have a 7.5mm fisheye arriving tomorrow, and will be purchasing a nodal head soon. This has been such a huge help.
Super helpful Lester!! Great and simple explanations. Everything was straight forward following your instructions. Nice video and useful additional info. Thanks and greetings from Spain.
Thanks a lot buddy, now I've gotta update my B&H photo cart with all this gear!!! LOL. Excellent, clearly explained instructions. Didn't even know I didn't know.
You're most welcome. I'm thinking of starting a foundation to fund photographers buying gear they never thought they needed from B&H, Adorama and the others. Wanna be the first one to contribute???
Lester - great video, thanks so much! I may add that I am using a Mamiya RB67 which has its tripod thread right in the middle of the camera body, vertically below the optical axis. So, no sideways adjustment needed. Also, the portrait orientation is achieved by just rotating the film back with the camera body still upright. That's a no-brainer so far. It does need of course the forward/back adjustment, for which I use a simple rail. Beyond that, my recommendation is to use aiming objects that are much closer (believe it or not, I use chopsticks). I have to focus then to a closer distance, increasing the lens extension which changes the nodal point again. But the RB67 has a scale from which I can read the lens extension in millimeters, and just correct the camera position by that amount because the lens will be focused at infinity for the real shot. The closer position of the aiming objects makes the process more accurate and easier, because the sideways movement is more pronounced when the camera rotates about the wrong point. Just a recommendation for those among us who use such old "basic" cameras!
Excellent instruction! Hate to get more equipment but it looks like panos are more that just swinging the camera across a view and taking some clicks. Thanks again.
Thanks for posting this video. Here's an alternative way to locate the lens center. Set the dslr to live view and adjust the camera's position to center the image of the pano head's pivot point onto the camera's viewer area. Most cameras have view finder center marks for metering, focus micro-prisms, etc. Rotating the camera a full 360° will confirm that the camera is at 90° to the base and that you have located the center of the lens if the image stays centered. If there is no obvious mark or bit of hardware to determine the pano head's pivot point, the 360° test will help locate it for you.
Lester that was super helpful, I have a Nikon D750 and I was going to upgrade simply as I crop all the time and I loooove Pano's but now am convinced that I don't need to upgrade and that I will go out and purchase this system. THANK YOU!
Thank you for your nice comments and I do hope it helps. I have several students who have done superb panos with the D750. Remember that it does take some practice.
So well explained. A trully lesson on photography. Thank you very much for sharing such important knowledge and most important explaining it in a simple manner. Huge fan from now on.
Hi Les, fine explanation but it is only for 100% correct for a single row horizontal panorama and not for a multi-row or for a vertical panorama. For a multi-row you will pan your camera up/down to go from one row to another. This means that the horizontal axis where the camera turns around has to go exactly through the nodal point. In order to achieve this the central axis of your lens and the central axis of the nodal slide you use to move the camera forward/backward have to go both through the same plane that is vertical to that nodal slide. This is a little bit tricky since you have to estimate it and there are no marks on the L-bracket you use to fix the camera on the rotator to pan it up and down. Once you have determined the exact position, put a mark on your L-bracket for consistent later use. If you fail to do this, you will introduce a parallax error while panning up/down. Sorry for the complex geometric explanation.
After watching your video I thought you're so logical, I mean your mind is. Absolutely beautiful. Thank you so much for the explanation of what the nodal point is and how to achieve it.
Hi! It is not really essential to have critical focus on both poles. If you stay at f11 or f16 you will be fine, so you'll need good lighting. When you are close to nailing it, just alternate focus from front to back poles just to be sure.
Thank you for your reply! I sincerely appreciate this. I appreciate too your sharing with us from your time tested, proven experience. Looking forward to my first serious attemp at this in two weeks on my trip out to CO. Will experiment here at home first. Thank you Scott
Thank you very much Mr. Picker for presenting this instructional video. The explanation is very good, easy to understand for me and your calm voice very pleasant. Now with this knowledge I hope to take better landscape Panoramas with an interesting foreground, which so far was not possible for me. Thank you very much.
Hi, Lester! Thanks for your way of finding a nodal point! It's awesome! I set up my panoramic head in a few seconds. And this after a week of wandering on the Internet. Tnx a LOT!
Lester, I just found you and your videos... This is the first one that I've watched. I must say that it was very informative and well produced. Thank you and your team, I'm looking forward to watching the rest.
Lester, Thanks for the tuition, your video is brilliant and easy to understand, I put the information into practice and I am now producing better images, thanks very much for sharing.
FWIW, to make it easier and allow for even more precision, use *one* pole (a cross would be better for adjusting both horizontal and vertical at once), a wall behind it, and a bright light source at the nodal point. Mark the shadow on the wall with a contrasting colour, then mount your camera and make your adjustments. (The rays of light travelling past the edge of the pole to the nodal point are at an angle to the axis of the lens, so the farther the second pole is behind the first pole, the wider the second pole would need to be to fit exactly within the shadow of the first pole. Positioning two poles of differing widths would be *FAR* too fiddly when you can use a literal shadow to accomplish the same thing.)
I just had an even easier, more precise method. (I *think*, anyways.) A laser point in a (reasonably) long tube with a diameter the size of the beam is positioned to point at the camera mount's center of rotation. In theory, the spot it projects will only stay perfectly round when the camera is rotated if the nodal point is perfectly aligned with the mount's center of rotation. If it isn't, as the nodal point slides left/right/up/down, the tube will occlude part of the beam. Does that make sense? It would *certainly* be easier to achieve high precision if it worked. (If you want to create it as a saleable product, feel free.)
Wow! I had no idea about nodal points but I have just recently become interested in panos. I do real estate photography and some houses call for a pano. Not able to justify a tilt shift so panos have been a lifesaver.
Thank you Mr Lester, u helping amateurs getting some useful knowledge, for now on ill make panos only based on the nodal point so i get the best stiching. But still i thought using the widest lenses like 16mm or 18mm would be better, you say 50-70mm one more point! Thinking to buy online a 360 rotation head plus ball head and slider so i can push back and forward and an L bracket so i can go vertical. Hope it all comes together and work. Because a gimbal head is too expensive nowadays!
Wonderful Video!! Great explanation of the Principles of Parallax, and Nodal Points, as well as the how to determine them for lenses. Thank you for teaching us all!
Thank you! Glad it helped. Feel free to write if you have any questions. Also, please share one or two of your panos by sending to my website address. Full credit to you and my viewers love to see others' efforts. Good shooting!
Excellent video thank's. As a bonus for me. I had never thought of stacking pano's before. What an epiphany. I always stuck with a single line of images. Guess what I'm doing this weekend.
For those saying this is too long, please understand that this is the level of detail someone would go into when you're in a workshop and a professional photographer is teaching you. The fact that Lester is putting this up for free on UA-cam is very kind of him. I certainly learned a lot. Thank you Les!
Vaibhav, thank you for understanding. I do tend to go into detail and in today's world there are many people who have little time and patience. I understand that my videos are not for everyone. Fortunately, nearly 3,000 people "liked" the video so far and only 85 gave it a thumbs down. I hope you have subscribed and will continue to watch. Please let me know if there are any photography subjects you would like me to cover.
Amen ! Loved it and learnt a lot. Thanks Lester !
It is even simpler that this. You only need to do it once if you use the same camera and lens. After you find the point you can mark your lens where it is and refer to the mark next time to set it up in seconds.
When you go to a "workshop" you have paid for a verbose trainer to make you think you are getting your money's worth by taking 5x the time a concise person needs to communicate an idea. People like this is why UA-cam has 1.25/1.5 playback speeds.
@@johnsmith1474 : probably the best advice regarding this video "workshop" - LOL!
Finally someone who explains well!!!!!!!
Pavel, thank you!
Clear, well organized and entertaining. Not an easy task with a subject as clear as a politician trying to explain, well, anything. Cheers …
Thanks Dave. Glad you enjoyed it.
A really helpful, easy to understand video - on a subject that can otherwise get confusing in a hurry. Thanks much.
Bob, you are welcome. I hope you get some wonderful panos.
Thank you very much. People say it is to long, it isn't this is the best tutorial I ever have seen on UA-cam about setting up the equipment to make panorama photos and everything is well explained in detail ( finally) again thanks.
Thanks, Mark. Just glad it helps and hope that you'll capture some terrific panos.
wasted a solid hour trying to set up the nodal point on a nodal ninja. then watched this video. then set up the nodal point in 20 seconds. HUGE thanks!!
ha! saved me again with this video. and I was the last to comment, watched it a half decade ago and forgot the whole process. awesome thanks.
You are most welcome. Glad it helped.
I was just curious about the term "nodal point". No interest in Panos or the equipment necessary. However once you started teaching I was in for the full video. VERY WELL DONE.
Well organized, clear and easy to understand explanation. Well done!
Thanks, Alessandro. Now go out and nail some wonderful panos!
Hands down one of my favourite videos on UA-cam. Legend.
Thank you!
Hello Mr. Picker. I watch your videos whenever I find time. These are very useful and instructive videos for us. I would like to thank you for sharing your experiences that you got with many years. There is an idiom that says: If the tree has a lot of fruit, it bends. I wish I had met and worked with you before.
Shukran, Sadeeki. Thank you for your very kind comments. I also thank you for the idiom. It is always good to keep this in mind as we walk through life. Now that we have met we can work together from now on... still a blessing.
That was an amazing lesson. I made my first attempt at a pano today, and after seeing how Photoshop struggled with it, I clearly didn't know the information in this video. Many thanks Lester!
Many thanks Lester, this is the clearest, most user-friendly explanation of the parallax phenomenon and how to overcome it that I've ever seen!
Wow! What a nice compliment. Thanks, Mark. Glad it was helpful.
Thanx . Greatly. Unlike many educational video offerings, you are complete and concise.
Thanks so much, Dave. Best of luck with your panos.
Lester, first time I have come across your videos. Also, today I received what I thought was the final piece of gear for my new tripod. I now stand corrected. I need at least a focusing rail to do the nodal point stuff you just taught me. Very straightforward and properly explained. Thanks very much.
Absolutely phenomenal instruction! Really trying to get into landscape photography, and for the weeks of "instructional" videos I've watched, this is hands down the most thorough in picking a technical topic and explaining the reasons behind and methodologies for achieving desired results.
HI! Thank you so much for your very kind review. Much appreciated and wishing you the best of luck with your panos.
This is the most helpfull video about the Nodal point. Thank you Mr.Picker
You are welcome, Alain. Best oif luck with your panos. You may want to check out this blog: lesterpickerphoto.com/2020/02/13/span-classwhitemulti-shot-panos/span/
Wonderful tutorial, live view tip makes it so much easier.
Thank you, Murahi. Good luck on your pano adventures!
The best explanation of. a practical method of finding the nodal point. Thank you.
Its refreshing to actually learn something about photography instead of getting the latest and greatest this and that rammed at us..Thanks for the information,its much appreciated
Thank you, Anthony! Stay tuned for my expanded UA-cam channel, coming this spring, dedicated to thoughtful, mindful photographers. No loud, fast-talking, in your face diatribes.
Best explanation of a seemingly complex procedure. You have made the complicated easy to understand and I thank you for that. This is a brilliant tutorial.
Tom: Thank you for your nice comments! Happy shooting!
I would like to thank you for taking the time to explain in detail and for the tremendous effort you put into the shooting.
to be honest there are many tutorial out there that talk about shooting panoramic photo but so far this is the most ever , best explanation i ever seen . thank you very much . i wish there was a way to give your video a 5 star. thx GOD BLESS
Cedric: Wow! What a nice comment. Thank you and I'm just happy the video explained the concept to you.
The explanation was very good in fact i can't afford to buy a panoramic head now but with your explanation i was able to put together a diy type head (which has some minor limitations) check the pictures on this link. Thx GBU drive.google.com/drive/mobile/folders/0B1CoNFA5m66RVVZ4dHZ4VHVqa0E
Cedric:
Thanks so much for sharing your setup. Looks ingenious, but the proof is in the image, and that image is spectacular. Congrats! If any of my viewers is interested in how one person has developed his own pano setup, please click on Cedric's link and see for yourself.
Les
@@cedricsaike8602 Ingenious! What a shot!
Thank you Lester. Very informative and useful. All the best. Simon
Thank you, Simon. Glad you found it useful. Good luck with your panos.
Very well done, the live view pro tip at 19:15 is brilliant!
You get a like and a sibscribe for this, just for your clarification on 'Nodal point'! This is the level of detail i really appreciate - thanks!
Thanks, Gary. Not everyone appreciates my slow, deliberate approach.
12:15 - this is where he shows how to find the nodal point on the tripod.
(not a criticism, but that's all I was looking for)
Yep, 3 minutes of info in 20 minutes!
@@forkitover1 For someone who has a basic understanding of the subject matter - a lot of people don't and they can benefit from the whole video, so I wouldn't judge too harshly.
I would say 16:16
@@forkitover1 you bitch
Thank You very much for this tutorial, is very helpful even we speak different languages is clear to understand.
outstanding. the clearest explanation of this topic I've seen so far. Typically by the time someone is done explaining what the 'nodal point' is you really have no idea what they're talking about.
good job.
Thanks, Trevor. I really appreciate your taking the time to send this. Best wishes for some great photography!
I am at the point of learning panoramic photography and you explained this fantastically clear and understandable. Thank you.
Thanks, Eddie and best of luck with your panos.
Man, that lion photo is SICK!!!!
Thanks, Ivan. I shot that in South Africa. It is a massively huge Kalahari lion.
The best explanation I have seen on this topic!
Well, well done! Panorama is one of my favorite landscape forms and the one on your wall (seen at 2:16) is truly impressive. I started out carrying a 35mm camera and a Fuji GX617 , which I remember Galen Rowell kidding me about how much I carried with me. Now it is a Nikon D800 and the Really Right Stuff pano heads - and it's a LOT faster and lighter! Great Job!
Thank you, Gary. So, it's me who is impressed! Galen Rowell, one of my very favorite photographers. I still get sad at his untimely death. Anyway, that pano on our studio wall is 15 images across and 3 rows. It spans 25 feet. Taken in Iceland.
Awesome video! Lengthy but never boring. Thanks!
Thanks, Michael. Glad you got something out of it. Wishing you good shooting!
Sir: Thanks you made my Day. You’re the best Teacher I found in UA-cam
Thank you, Daniel. What a nice thing to say. Best wishes to you with your panos!
You made the process so easy to understand and set. Great teacher as well as a pro photographer. Subscribed.
Finally, some one explains this process well. thanks Mr Picker !
I can hardly believe that I was getting away with my "don't worry just take lots of overlaps " ever stitched together in photoshop. Then all of a sudden in the 2021 version of photoshop everything sopped working. This was a wonderful talk, and I thank you very much Lester..Outstanding. I only have a standard tripod so I am going to be up against it, but panoramas is where I am so I must resolve things .Most of my panoramas are about eight frames wide and I usually have a3 rows, and I have been using focal length far too wide at maybe 50mm equivalent. .
I like this video and very much appreciate the effort that went into it. What follows is a thank you rather than a compliant.
Nodal points come from the "Gauss thick lens theory" and require a bit of optic theory to fully understand but the key point is the there are two; and one is the exit nodal point. The exit nodal point for photographic lens is always one focal length from the sensor when the lens is set an infinity. When the lens is not set to infinity is is at the image distance, which is not what is seen on the lens mount but requires some math to get.
For example if focused on a pole at 5 meters a 500 mm lens image distance is going to be 0.5mm longer than the focal length so the the nodal point will be 1/2 mm off at infinity and about 1mm off for a 70mm lens under the same conditions.
Clearly these errors are insignificant but are comparable with the errors from the simple method I suggest.
1) Nodal points are points about which you can rotate the lens and the image on the focal plane will not move. This is what they do and why they make image stitching work well. This what the two pole demo is looking to do. Thgey do not have to be perfect for most stitching programs to get a good join.
2) One nodal point is exactly (by definition) one focal length from the film plane when the lens is focused at infinity and the image distance away when focused closer. . Using this you can get very close to the nodal point by using a ruler and putting the center of the camera one focal length, as marked on the lens or its zoom ring, from the sensor mark on the camera body, when focused on a distant scene.
The best explanation on how to find the nodal point so far that I`ve come across. Thanks for taking time to do this. Hope i get some good shots this time around
Thank you, Satrajit! Best wishes and feel free to share your results with my viewers and readers of my blog. Send it to me via email from my website (lesterpickerphoto.com).
Great tutorial, thank you. The best part is at the end showing the taped pole 'get back in line' while shifting the camera back. Actually I found out practicing that you should start with poles aligned in one side (left or right) of the view finder then turn the camera (left to right or vice-versa) till the poles are in the other side of the viewfinder..... Then shift the camera back/forward to realign the poles. And BINGO, there's your nodal point/entry pupil in one single move, no need to turn back and forth . 😉
Excellent instructions on how to find the proper adjustment. For what it's worth, I enjoyed your conversational style of presenting the subject, you came across as very friendly.
Thanks so much. I appreciate that!
Thanks, Tom. Much appreciated and best of luck with your panos.
Bango! You have enriched my life. Thank you sir. I now understand this subject.
Your comment made me smile. So glad it helped. Now, go out and capture some wonderful panos!
A new word... I will cherish it and use in my everyday vocabulary. 🙏🏻
Nice and clear explanation, for the more techy ones just make sure that the rotation point coincide with centre of the aperture leaves. Some principles as to to set up a gimbal head where you use the centre of gravity instead of the centre of the shutter leaves to balance the camera for two completely different shooting purposes, hence two different tripod heads; one to eliminate parallax and the other to make the camera/lens unit feel weightless, 99% of cases the two setup points are different as the two centres do not reside in the same place, the “C” bracket head can be used as a gimbal with great results whilst the gimbal can be set to pivot on the nodal point but it will be awkward to use.
Not as awkward as your prose.
You're a very good teacher and very kind for sharing your knowledge and time.
Marcellus Kimontait Thank you Marcellus!
Extremely helpful! Very well done, clear and concise with many useful hints and tips. Thanks so much!
Les,
Great job on this tutorial. Very clear, concise and enough variation for people that it's usable in a lot of ways. Thank you for putting it together!
Tim, thank you for your kind comments and best of luck with your panos.
I am definitely an amateur but found this expanded my understanding of the lens / camera interaction and well worth the time spent. I think there's enough movement on the gimbal head mounts to facilitate this technique. Thanks for sharing!
WOW! Thank you sir, this video is very clear to the point, and freshguy friendly!!
You are most welcome! So glad it helped.
Thank you for these clear and detailed explainations. All words were useful in my opinion.
So many videos only talk about level adjustment or right angle marks and say nothing about the let's say "nodal point" fine adjustment.
I am on my way to shoot some panos in the french Bassin d'Arcachon.
So many nice views and skies to shoot there.
Al, good luck with your panos. What a lovely area the Bassin d'Arcachon is!
You made finding the Nodal point very easy!
Thanks, Wendell. So glad it helped.
Thank you for posting this in-depth explanation.
An excellent explanation of how to ascertain the nodal point for a given lens. Thank you, Lester! Your beautiful panoramic photography wall enlargements are stunning indeed, and certainly expemplify the Image Quality obtainable using the technique you describe.
As I don't have the photographic equipment in this video, I was lucky to be able to create highly detailed panoramas, but much smaller enlargements (10"x36", for example), using 4 stitched 24 MP .tif images with a very sharp Fujinon XF35mm f/2 lens on an X-Pro2 vertically mounted on a decent Oben Carbon Fiber tripod. Of course, your technique and recommendation to make use of the lens' nodal point, besides beneficial for printing large, as you stated, also avoids the unfortunate necessity of losing image information in post-processing when cropping top-to-bottom across the image! Happy Holidays to you, sir!
SO MANY FANCY USELESS VIDEOS OUT THERE. HERE IT GOES, SIMPLE, CLEAR AND DIRECT TO THE POIN... THANKS!
Mathieuasselin: Thank you for your kind comment. Best wishes.
18:35 BANGGO! The secret trick that’s so easy. Thanks!
Excellent explanation. Ignore the boring derogatory comments. Enjoyable for both the information and the wonderful wall images.
Superb! ...And, as always, fine equipment makes a big difference. Add to that, waiting for the ideal time at exceptional locations and you're a pro. Thanks so much.
Thanks for your comments, Michael!
Thank you Lester for your details explaining. It’s a very informative video. I hope you’re well and still making beautiful photographs!!!
You are very welcome. Thank you for your kind comments. I’m well and still photographing and teaching photography. Wishing you the very best.
Lester, great demonstration. Using live view function makes this so much easier. Many thanks!
Glad it helped, Andrew. Best of luck with your panos!
Thanks! I'm thinking of using this strategy a lot in the future. And as I noticed the key way to actually just set the nodal point with the two stick, it may actually be possible to put it up every time on the field using two strings attached to branches in line with the center of the position of the tripod where it is going to shoot the panorama! So this way you are capable of using this technique randomly with any lens at any focal length! You also can set it up with a more inexpensive tripod head. Yet it still need a specialized camera support to make it rigid, convenient and fluid. Amazing pictures on your walls!
Thanks, Marc. Here's wishing you good luck with your panos. Please feel free to share a few with me and I'll post them if you wish.
Les, Great job. When you mentioned the vertical poles, I realized a similarity with aiming posts used by field artillery in the pre GPS day. Once a gun was pointed on the correct azimuth, a primary (an optical instrument.set close the the gun) and, secondary aiming points (two metal poles) were established. The aiming points allowed the gun to shoot a mission based on rotating to the left or right of the azimuth on fire. The gun then returns to the azimuth of fire. The vertical line in the gunner’s optics would be placed beyond the far vertical pole. We used the acronym NFL - Near Far Line - to help remember the order of the lines. Thanks. Jim
Thanks for the fascinating perspective on this, Jim. I found it most interesting.
Hi Lester, your video was wonderful. I found the explanations easy to understand and will certainly help me a lot in this new phase of producing 360 panoramas. What I found coolest was the fact that I knew that you prefer to use telephoto lenses, I thought wide-angle ones would be better. Thank you very much for sharing your knowledge.
Thank you! So glad you found it helpful.
WOW... What a fantastic video Lester!! I have a 7.5mm fisheye arriving tomorrow, and will be purchasing a nodal head soon. This has been such a huge help.
Thank you, Nick. Stay tuned for some other videos we will be doing this year. Good shooting!
Super helpful Lester!! Great and simple explanations. Everything was straight forward following your instructions. Nice video and useful additional info. Thanks and greetings from Spain.
Thank you, Marcos. I'm pleased that it helped. Best of luck with your panos. Feel free to send me an email with an example of a good pano you did.
Thanks a lot buddy, now I've gotta update my B&H photo cart with all this gear!!! LOL. Excellent, clearly explained instructions. Didn't even know I didn't know.
You're most welcome. I'm thinking of starting a foundation to fund photographers buying gear they never thought they needed from B&H, Adorama and the others. Wanna be the first one to contribute???
@@lespicker LOL. Nope! This reminds me of my Lightroom class when I first heard about focus stacking. My brain exploded with ideas.
Very good presentation with great information presented in an easy to comprehend manner - thanks for taking the time to share your knowledge
Lester - great video, thanks so much! I may add that I am using a Mamiya RB67 which has its tripod thread right in the middle of the camera body, vertically below the optical axis. So, no sideways adjustment needed. Also, the portrait orientation is achieved by just rotating the film back with the camera body still upright. That's a no-brainer so far. It does need of course the forward/back adjustment, for which I use a simple rail. Beyond that, my recommendation is to use aiming objects that are much closer (believe it or not, I use chopsticks). I have to focus then to a closer distance, increasing the lens extension which changes the nodal point again. But the RB67 has a scale from which I can read the lens extension in millimeters, and just correct the camera position by that amount because the lens will be focused at infinity for the real shot. The closer position of the aiming objects makes the process more accurate and easier, because the sideways movement is more pronounced when the camera rotates about the wrong point. Just a recommendation for those among us who use such old "basic" cameras!
Alexander, thank you so much for this tip. I hope others will see your comment and use it if their gear is similar.
Great explanation, I love the story with the thumb to explain parallax. Also an easy way to do the trick with live view. Thank you very much!
Excellent instruction! Hate to get more equipment but it looks like panos are more that just swinging the camera across a view and taking some clicks. Thanks again.
Thanks for posting this video. Here's an alternative way to locate the lens center. Set the dslr to live view and adjust the camera's position to center the image of the pano head's pivot point onto the camera's viewer area. Most cameras have view finder center marks for metering, focus micro-prisms, etc. Rotating the camera a full 360° will confirm that the camera is at 90° to the base and that you have located the center of the lens if the image stays centered. If there is no obvious mark or bit of hardware to determine the pano head's pivot point, the 360° test will help locate it for you.
Wow this video was the best most detailed video I’ve seen yet. Thank you for sharing such great content and expert knowledge.
Lester that was super helpful, I have a Nikon D750 and I was going to upgrade simply as I crop all the time and I loooove Pano's but now am convinced that I don't need to upgrade and that I will go out and purchase this system. THANK YOU!
Thank you for your nice comments and I do hope it helps. I have several students who have done superb panos with the D750. Remember that it does take some practice.
Brilliant explanation Lester. Thanks a million for putting this together .........Thank you
Thanks, Solo. So nice of you to leave a nice comment. Best of luck with your panos.
So well explained. A trully lesson on photography. Thank you very much for sharing such important knowledge and most important explaining it in a simple manner. Huge fan from now on.
Thank you for your comments!
You are a gifted teacher! Very clear and to the point! Thank you for sharing your knowledge!!!
Thank you so much, Terry!
Hi Les, fine explanation but it is only for 100% correct for a single row horizontal panorama and not for a multi-row or for a vertical panorama. For a multi-row you will pan your camera up/down to go from one row to another. This means that the horizontal axis where the camera turns around has to go exactly through the nodal point. In order to achieve this the central axis of your lens and the central axis of the nodal slide you use to move the camera forward/backward have to go both through the same plane that is vertical to that nodal slide. This is a little bit tricky since you have to estimate it and there are no marks on the L-bracket you use to fix the camera on the rotator to pan it up and down. Once you have determined the exact position, put a mark on your L-bracket for consistent later use. If you fail to do this, you will introduce a parallax error while panning up/down. Sorry for the complex geometric explanation.
After watching your video I thought you're so logical, I mean your mind is. Absolutely beautiful. Thank you so much for the explanation of what the nodal point is and how to achieve it.
I am flattered, Hoang. Thanks for your kind words.
Wow, I had no idea but after your explanation, it all makes perfect logical sense. Thanks for your video. I know this will be very helpful.
Thanks, Tom. Just glad this was helpful.
This is still one of my favorite videos on youtube for setting the nodal point! 👍👌
Thanks so much for those kind words, Chris.
Great demo ... have a monfroto 303plus and forgot how to determine the nodal point ....you nailed it for me ... cheers
Thanks, Toby. Happy that it helped. Now go out and capture some great panos!
Excellent thank you. And no, not too long. Been working on this and one question:
What do you do to get the polls both in focus in live view?
Hi! It is not really essential to have critical focus on both poles. If you stay at f11 or f16 you will be fine, so you'll need good lighting. When you are close to nailing it, just alternate focus from front to back poles just to be sure.
Thank you for your reply! I sincerely appreciate this.
I appreciate too your sharing with us from your time tested, proven experience.
Looking forward to my first serious attemp at this in two weeks on my trip out to CO. Will experiment here at home first.
Thank you
Scott
Thank you very much Mr. Picker for presenting this instructional video. The explanation is very good, easy to understand for me and your calm voice very pleasant. Now with this knowledge I hope to take better landscape Panoramas with an interesting foreground, which so far was not possible for me. Thank you very much.
Such kind words, Georg. Thank you! Best of luck with those panos.
Hi, Lester! Thanks for your way of finding a nodal point! It's awesome! I set up my panoramic head in a few seconds. And this after a week of wandering on the Internet. Tnx a LOT!
You are so welcome! Glad it helped. Good luck with your panos!!
Lester, I just found you and your videos... This is the first one that I've watched. I must say that it was very informative and well produced. Thank you and your team, I'm looking forward to watching the rest.
Lester, Thanks for the tuition, your video is brilliant and easy to understand, I put the information into practice and I am now producing better images, thanks very much for sharing.
FWIW, to make it easier and allow for even more precision, use *one* pole (a cross would be better for adjusting both horizontal and vertical at once), a wall behind it, and a bright light source at the nodal point. Mark the shadow on the wall with a contrasting colour, then mount your camera and make your adjustments. (The rays of light travelling past the edge of the pole to the nodal point are at an angle to the axis of the lens, so the farther the second pole is behind the first pole, the wider the second pole would need to be to fit exactly within the shadow of the first pole. Positioning two poles of differing widths would be *FAR* too fiddly when you can use a literal shadow to accomplish the same thing.)
Thanks, Keith. Always looking for new and creative approaches.
I just had an even easier, more precise method. (I *think*, anyways.) A laser point in a (reasonably) long tube with a diameter the size of the beam is positioned to point at the camera mount's center of rotation. In theory, the spot it projects will only stay perfectly round when the camera is rotated if the nodal point is perfectly aligned with the mount's center of rotation. If it isn't, as the nodal point slides left/right/up/down, the tube will occlude part of the beam.
Does that make sense? It would *certainly* be easier to achieve high precision if it worked. (If you want to create it as a saleable product, feel free.)
Wonderful tutorial !!! Your one of my best teacher from whom I learned new skills about landscape photography on youtube.
Thank you !!!
best regards
Thank you, Kamran! Best of luck with your photography.
A wonderfully thorough explanation.
Thank you very much for this tutorial. It was immensely helpful.
Thank you for your kind comment, Shai. Best of luck with your panos.
Hello Lester, Appreciate your time and sharing the knowledge with simple explanation and the tips to hold on to the measurements.
You are most welcome, Sivakumar. Now go out and make great panos! Best of luck.
Excellent presentation and explanation. Thanks for sharing such valuable information.
You are most welcome, Naseem. I am happy it helped.
Damn! That's one of the most usefull videoinstruction I have ever seen! Thank you so much Lester!
Thank you, Romunas! I hope it helps you get great panos! And stay tuned for our new UA-cam channel launch later this Fall.
Wow! I had no idea about nodal points but I have just recently become interested in panos. I do real estate photography and some houses call for a pano. Not able to justify a tilt shift so panos have been a lifesaver.
Hi Lester, Thank you for putting this together. Excellent clip, simplicity at its best. You have cleared the forest from the trees (Y)
Lester, Thank you very much for your video! Very well explained and demonstrated!
Awesome practical stuff! I now know what a nodal point or pupil point is and am certain I will take better panos in the future.
Thanks, Rick. Best wishes to you for capturing those great panos!
Thank you Mr Lester, u helping amateurs getting some useful knowledge, for now on ill make panos only based on the nodal point so i get the best stiching. But still i thought using the widest lenses like 16mm or 18mm would be better, you say 50-70mm one more point! Thinking to buy online a 360 rotation head plus ball head and slider so i can push back and forward and an L bracket so i can go vertical. Hope it all comes together and work. Because a gimbal head is too expensive nowadays!
Wonderful Video!! Great explanation of the Principles of Parallax, and Nodal Points, as well as the how to determine them for lenses. Thank you for teaching us all!
Thank you! Glad it helped. Feel free to write if you have any questions. Also, please share one or two of your panos by sending to my website address. Full credit to you and my viewers love to see others' efforts. Good shooting!
Brilliantly informative and a very complex issue explained very well.
Thanks, Paul.
Very good explanation. You have some very nice equipment. Thanks for taking the time.
Thank you, Graham. You are most welcome. Good luck with your panos.
Excellent video thank's. As a bonus for me. I had never thought of stacking pano's before. What an epiphany. I always stuck with a single line of images. Guess what I'm doing this weekend.
Good news, Frank! Please feel free tgo send me a jpg image (20458 pixels on longest side) for display here.