Handy Camera Hardware for Proper Panoramas and Balance

I already did an article on the technical aspects of doing panorama photography. It discussed ways that you can figure out the pivot location for your lens (at the lens entrance pupil) to totally eliminate parallax error. That article is located here 

What I haven’t yet discussed is the best way to actually support your camera/lens on a tripod. Photographers generally know about using Arca-Swiss supports, but most of those designs are completely incompatible with doing correct panoramas or weight balance. I’m going to address those issues, and show you how you can have the best of both worlds.

A really nice aspect of the hardware I’m going to discuss is that you can buy this stuff for really cheap. Or you can buy really expensive stuff, if that’s your thing.

I’m not trying to sell anything, so any mention of specific hardware doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily better than some other hardware.  An important consideration, however, is the length or adjustability range of some clamps or plates.

Camera “L” brackets are a great way to mount your camera onto an Arca-Swiss mount, but how do you shift them away from the tripod pivot axis for a proper panorama? There’s a way. Enter the ‘nodal slide’. This device was designed to let you move the camera away from the tripod centerline along the lens axis. It uses Arca-Swiss hardware, so it’s adjustable, fast, and secure.

A ‘Nodal Slide’ top view

The hardware shown above is a combination of an Arca-Swiss plate with an Arca-Swiss clamp at one end. The clamp is perpendicular to the plate, so that a camera with an Arca-Swiss plate attached to its base will then mount perpendicular to the long plate. The entire rig is then attached to another Arca-Swiss clamp on the tripod head.

There’s a handy bubble level on the slide. It’s very important to get your camera level when making panorama or architectural shots.

A ‘Nodal Slide’ bottom view

In this bottom view, you can see a stainless ¼-20 screw that can be used to attach your camera to the slide, if the camera doesn’t have an Arca-Swiss plate on it. Normally, this screw will go unused but can be left in-place.

A ‘Nodal Slide’ side view

The slide has a millimeter scale on both sides, which is crucial to allow quick repeatable mounting of the camera/lens at its proper entrance pupil location over the tripod pivot point.

Camera with an ‘L’ bracket for Arca-Swiss mounting

The ‘L’ bracket shown allows the camera to get clamped in either the landscape or portrait orientation onto the nodal slide. This bracket is just the right length to allow free access to the camera’s battery compartment on its base.

Be careful to align the lens axis over the center of the tripod rotation axis before clamping the camera onto the nodal slide.

Shift Along the Lens Axis

Camera with its lens entrance pupil over the tripod pivot

Some lenses have really, really long separations between the camera sensor and the lens entrance pupil (nodal point). If you buy ‘short’ plates or clamps, you might be limiting yourself in a way that you could later regret. On the other hand, hardware with a huge adjustability range can rapidly get unwieldy in the field. You’ll have to decide on what’s a happy medium for yourself.

Beware of trying the kind of offset shown above with a tripod “ball head”. Most ball heads aren’t strong enough to cope with off-balance loads like this. You need a strong tripod head and a strong tripod, too.

Camera in portrait orientation using its ‘L’ bracket

Most photographers prefer taking their panorama shots in portrait orientation. This hardware permits that orientation, while still being able to rotate about the lens entrance pupil centered over the tripod pivot point. Make sure that the camera ‘L’ bracket is tightened properly onto your camera, so that it doesn’t slip while in portrait orientation with a long, heavy lens attached.

There are zillions of rotating “panorama heads” for tripods that totally miss the point of how correct panoramas are achieved.  These heads expect you to attach them to the camera body tripod screw and then pivot about the camera body; they don’t know anything about lens entrance pupils or how to get rid of parallax error.

The hardware shown is quick to attach/detach and very solid in use. It is also easily adjusted.

It’s wise to try to get the balance point of your camera/lens centered over your tripod center column when doing ordinary single-shot photography. This will help minimize vibrations and is the best technique to ensure your tripod doesn’t tip over with your heavy gear on it. This hardware enables you to balance your setup quite easily.

I recorded pictures on my cell phone showing the correct lens entrance pupil mounting for each of my lenses at the focal lengths I might use. This makes it easy in the field to look up a correct setup, where I just need to match the nodal slide’s millimeter scale adjustment to the saved photo on my phone. It’s too hard for me to memorize these settings.

A panorama that stitches perfectly

The panorama above was created by sliding the camera on the nodal slide to get the pivot point of the tripod just underneath the lens entrance pupil. The shots making up the panorama stitched together to make a perfectly seamless panorama, using Capture One.

Shift the Camera Side-to-Side

Shift your camera left/right on its Arca-Swiss plate

The nodal slide is also very helpful in macro work for a couple of reasons. You can easily slide your camera/lens forward and backward without moving the tripod for careful close-up positioning. You can also easily shift your camera side-to-side and create a macro panorama from multiple shots.

3D anaglyph using shift (get out your red/blue glasses)

This hardware is also handy for making 3D anaglyphs by shifting your camera left/right on its Arca-Swiss plate. I used the Zoner Photo Studio to make the anaglyph here. You’ll usually want to shift by about 3 inches or 8 cm between shots, since that is roughly your eye separation distance.  If you’re really far away from the subject, shift by more than this. For macro subjects, smaller shifts should be used (around 3mm).

If you just search for ‘nodal slide rail’ at sites like Amazon, you’ll get a plethora of hardware results to select from. Keep in mind that it’s assumed you already have an Arca-Swiss compatible L-bracket or plate on your camera. You’ll also need an Arca-Swiss clamp on your tripod head.