The Wonders of an Engineering Mind

I’ve wanted to make cleaner panoramas so I looked into how the good photographers do it and they use special tripod heads that allow the camera to rotate around a point inside the lens (nodal point). If you rotate around a point other than the nodal point and are trying to shoot something close, you can get ghost images due to parallax.

One thing I have failed at is taking pictures of the entire build process. My pano head is similar to the second link at the bottom of the page while using wood from the first tutorial link. Metal would have been nice, but didn’t have access to it. I haven’t fully priced out how much this cost since I bought hardware at Lowe’s and then returned and repeated that process twice since I didn’t get stuff right. I might estimate it at around $25, which is still better than the hundreds you’ll spend on a really nice one.

Material Used:
 - Poplar Strip: 1/4×2x24
 - Poplar Strip: 5/8×5/8×36
 - Pine Strip: 3/8×2x36
 - Pine Board: 3/8×4x24
 - Qty 1 3″ Lazy Susan Bearing
 - Qty 2 1/4-20 Wing Nuts
 - Qty 1 1/4-20×1 Hand Screw thing
 - Qty 10 #6×1 Flat Phillips Wood Screws
 - Qty 12 #6 Flat Washers
 - Qty 5 1/4 Flat Washers
 - Qty 1 1/4-20 Wood Insert Nut (Happens to be Brass)
 - Qty 14 #6×1/3 Flat Phillips Wood Screws
 - Qty TBD 1/4×1 Fender Washers
 - Qty TBD 1/4-20×1 1/2 Hex Head Bolt
 - Qty 1 1/4-20×1 Flat Head Machine Screw

Camera Arm:
I cut the three pieces for this out of the 1/4″ Poplar strip; one piece being 8″ another being 1/25″ long, and a random piece to use as a standoff for my Pentax ME because the lens extends below the bottom of the camera. This third piece was made to the width of the camera. The shorter piece is to push the arm away from the vertical arm in an attempt to allow for full 360° vertical panorama; this is attached with 4 #6×1/2 wood screws. The holes for the rotation bolt and the slot for camera placement are 1/4″. Here are the pictures of the camera arm.

Camera Arm with Standoff

The slot looks like crap because my friend/coworker David and I were using the router by hand in a quickly made jig in his cold garage.

Camera Arm Sideview

Camera Arm Closeup

Vertical Arm:
The vertical arm is the most complex of the components used to build the pano head. This piece needs to hold the camera and remain affixed to the horizontal arm. To accomplish this, two pieces of the 3/8″ Pine were cut at different lengths to make the vertical component and the horizontal component. A small piece of the 5/8″ square stock was used as bracing material and provided more surface area for the epoxy and allowed for a more hardened screw attachment. The brace is attached to the vertical piece by two screws going perpendicular to the length of the 3/8″ piece. On each side of the base for the vertical arm is a #6×1/3 wood screw, a 1/4″ washer and a #6 washer used to keep the vertical arm from sliding off the horizontal arm. A small pilot hole was drilled for the screw and the washers were stacked to create the guide.

Vertical Arm Sideview

Vertical Arm Base Closeup 1

Vertical Arm Base Closeup 2

Vertical Arm Rotation Point Closeup

Horizontal Arm:
The Horizontal Arm is probably the simpliest piece of the whole assembly, aside from the custom standoff for my camera. It consists of a piece of the 3/8″ Pine with a 1/4″ slot down most of the length. There is a 5/16″ hole on the top and a 1/2″ hole on the bottom which is used to hide the rotator base tightening screw. There are four holes with the makeshift countersink for four #6×1 wood screws that are used to attach this piece to the rotator base. The pictures that follow show the look of the horizontal arm.

Horizontal Arm Top

Horizontal Arm Bottom

Rotator Base:
The rotator base is the main attachment of the pano head to the tripod (not a crappy one like I have). I cut two squares out of the wide Pine board and drilled a 1/4″ hole in the center of both. To allow for the threaded insert to be screwed in, enlarge the hole to 5/16″ on one of the squares. I centered the lazy susan bearing on both plates and marked its location in order to drill the pilot holes for the #6×1/2 wood screws to hold it down. Between the bearing and the piece of wood, I put a #6 washer to increase the distance for the wood screw and not have the screw tip poke through the pilot hole.

Rotator Base Top

Rotator Base ISO

Rotator Base Bottom

Complete Assembly:
The pieces of the assembly go together pretty easily. The tightening screw goes into the top of the rotator base with one of the 1/4″ washers. The horizontal arm is then screwed into the rotator base with 4 of the #6×1 wood screws. With the horizontal arm attached, the vertical arm and camera arms can be screwed attached.

Vertical and Camera Arm Assembly

Tightening Screw Detail

Assembly Rear

Areas of Improvement:
 1. Slots
  - Better jig for router, table router use, or aluminum with proper milling.
 2. Holes
  - Need a drill press to ensure holes are drilled vertically.
 3. Insert Screw
  - This is the main area of improvement I see, if the insert screw went in vertically, the tightening screw for the rotator base would have worked properly.
 4. Camera Arm
  - Use a shorter piece to allow easier viewing through the cameras’ viewfinder.

Miscellaneous:
This section will talk about my tripod attachement plate because my tripod sucks.

Helpful Links:
 - My DIY Equipment Photostream
 - Worth1000 $10 DIY Pano Head Tutorial
 - Homemade Pano Head by Dr. Sean Parkin
 - Matthias Wandel’s Pano Head
 - Panotools Wiki Pano Head Listing
 - Nodal Point Information and Finding
 - Panorama group at Flickr

Revision History:
 - 02/10/2008 – Added text and more pictures to the assembly section, put text on the vertical arm guides, moved miscellaneous section, updated material list
 - 01/28/2008 – Working Draft