Panodramas and tripods!

[bryceworld]

Hey all,

As the owner of a noblex I'm restricted to having the horizons dead center or

less foreground and more sky.

Is there any sort of tripod out there that will allow me to mount my camera in

an upside down position so i can do the reverse and have more foreground in my

pics and less sky?

If there is such a thing?

[victor_ho2]

I hope it's panorama and not drama. I just checked - Manfrotto 3001. The center post comes out and will reverse in the down position. It will be awkward but it should do what you want. I also had a Slik - model unknown - that would also reverse. There must be a more elegant solution though.

[brucecahn]

You can hang the camera upside down on the aluminum Gitzos by putting the head on the bottom of the column.

[Ed_Ingold]

If the camera is level, the horizon will be in the center regardless of the height of the camera (within reason). If you tilt the camera up or down, the rotating lens will cause the horizon to curve up or down from the center.

 

With stitched (multi-shot) panoramas, you can tilt the camera as long as the axis of rotation is perfectly vertical. You get convergence of vertical lines, which is easily corrected in software (automatically by most stitching programs).

[ellis_vener_photography]

Some of the noblex cameras have shift lens functions built in.

[James G. Dainis]

It seems like the simplest solution would be to use a bracket arm, a length of 1/4 inch thick metal that has a hole drilled and tapped for 1/4-20 thread to attach to the tripod screw. The other end has a hole large enough for a 1/4-20 screw to pass through and screw into the a tripod socket of the camera placed beneath it.

 

If the length of the tripod screw is long enough to pass through 1/4 inch thick metal so a 1/4-20 nut can be attached to it, then you need not have the hole in the bracket arm threaded. Now all you need is a length of metal with two holes in it at either end.

 

If you were to mount the camera on the bottom of a center post, wouldn't the legs of the tripod get in the way of the panorama shot?

[j_falth]

Hi,

 

 

Maybe, I'm not understanding the problem..

 

 

but, is there something wrong with retracting the legs, or spreading the leg's, so the tripod head is positioned lower to the ground...?

[frank uhlig]

" ... restricted to having the horizons dead center ..." you say.

 

Dead center in the picture frame - in my understanding - means that there is exactly the same angle of view up and down from the level horizon. Center = 1/2 of the frame looks up, and 1/2 looks down. Is that right?

 

Now you desire: " .. Is there any sort of tripod out there that will allow me to mount my camera in an upside down position .. " to have more than half down and less than half up (paraphrased).

 

How could this be possible? Even if you flip the camera so that down is up, the horizon will again have to be completely in the middle of the frame and that leaves the same two halves for your composition.

Can you explain how "in the center" does not/might not mean halving the frame and giving each the same width?

 

Of course you can later crop some of the sky or foreground off as you please to achieve a look more like what you desire. But if you tilt the camera, the horizon will bow out or in like a circle or an ellipse.

 

Ellis mentions shift lenses for the Noblex. They would do the trick, of course.

[bryceworld]

Hey everyone, thanks for your replies, much appreciated :)

 

Just to note a few things,

As James mentioned, If i take the center post out and put it back in, in reverse, the legs will show in the shot, unless we're mistaken?

 

Frank, I'm aware of how a noblex works re levels and shift features :)

The model I have shifts the lens UP only. Thus increasing the sky and minimizing the foreground, so the opposite should apply if the camera is turned upside down, more foreground and less sky, yes?

 

If nothing exists to remedy this I think James' home mod job sounds the best so far :)

[craig_gillette]

Bogen and others make horizontal arms/adapters that will take heads. Use one and mount the head below instead of above the arm. This will allow you to move it out in front of the leg set. You won't get a full 360 but may get more than 180. Might depend on the overall weight and arm extensions.

[Ed_Ingold]

Bryce,

 

You're not getting it! Level is level - the horizon will always be in the center of the frame, regardless of whether the camera is above or below the tripod, rightside up or upside down. The only thing that will change is the predominance of objects closer to the camera. A Rube-Goldberg bracket is not going to change the laws of geometry.

 

The Noblex has a fixed axis on which the lens rotates. If this axis is not perfectly vertical, the horizon will be curved up or down in the center. You can only tilt a camera for panoramas if the axis of rotation remains vertical.

[James G. Dainis]

The lens shift is straight up, much like raising the lens with the front standard of a view camera. The camera is level, the film is level, the lens is level only a bit higher on the camera.

[ilkka]

As has been mentioned, all Gitzo tripods (and many others) allow removal of centre column and mounting it upside down. Some Gitzo and Manfrotto tripods (Gitzo 22xx?) have centre column that can be angled 90 degrees sideways. That would also do the trick with a ball head postioned down instead of up.

 

Noblex is a bit tricky and defies common logic. It must be held level, otherwise the horizon will curve. It comes with built in rise, but only rise. To get the lens to fall, the camera indeed needs to be mounted upside down.

[bryceworld]

THANK YOU Ilkka!

 

To be honest I had assumed that from the start but I didn't know if there was some new attachment thing out there i knew nothing of.

I did marvel at james initiative to use a bracket arm and just drill my own holes too ;)

 

OK Hopefully this will clear some things up on the Noblex front:

 

 

 

Camera level = level horizons

 

Camera angled down = Horizon edges bent down. (So the horizon will resemble the top half of a clock - Not usually that extreme) Increased tilt of the camera produces increased 'bend' in the horizon.

 

Camera angled up = Horizon edges bent up. So the Horizon resembles the bottom half of a clock

 

Camera LEVEL with lens shift UP = STRAIGHT horizons!!! BUT the Horizon is positioned towards the bottom of the frame i.e more sky in the picture

 

By using the camera in an upside down position with the above shift feature in use you should be able to achieve a shot with more foreground (less sky because the camera is upside down now) in the picture with a LEVEL horizon.

 

The biggest problem faced here is the task of getting the camera bang on level as the spirit level is a bubble one and can really only be used in an upright position...

 

All this could be avoided if somehow a noblex with a DOWN lens shift existed :P

[ilkka]

You can use a spirit level on the flat bottom of the camera when it is mounted upside down. In a rush, just letting the camera hang loose from the upside down ballhead gets it quite straight since the ball fitting is in the centre of the camera. Remember to tighten the ball before exposure. The viewfinder can also be used to roughly judge that the camera is L/R level and horizon goes in the middle of the viewfinder image. Do remember that the viewfinder always shows the unshifted image so horizon goes straight through the middle even with maximum rise. The small cut out in the top of the viewfinder gives an approximation of what comes in the image top with maximum rise, the bottom cropping needs to be estimated.