- Once you've got a stable platform, and a level platform,
you have to attach the camera somehow to the actual tripod.
And there's really two major distinctions.
It comes down to how you wanna shoot.
The first type of system you have here Ron,
is really for just doing a single-row panorama.
One set of shots with the 360, right?
- Right.
And this one allows me with such a wide-angle lens
to actually capture the entire 360 by 180.
- And so go ahead and attach that,
and what's essentially happening here is you've got it
so that the camera is offset a little bit so it's the lens
that's over the center of the tripod, as opposed to
the camera body itself.
And we'll explore the reasons behind that more
a little bit later.
But all in all, this is pretty simple, right?
It's attached, it's firm.
What's the key benefits here?
- The key benefit I would say is that it's compact,
but even more so, there's less opportunity for error
with this very dedicated tripod head.
- So, you've attached the lens here and it's actually
sort of using a coupler around the wide-angle lens.
Normally, you don't see these sorts of cuffs
on such a small lens.
This is more the type of thing that you would see
a shoe for more of a telephoto lens.
But, you've used it here to hold a wide-angle lens
or a fish-eye in this case.
- That's right they actually make a ring for each lens,
so it fits a particular lens.
So that's one of the down sides.
If you wanna use a different lens, you're going to have to
change the ring.
Even though on this particular tripod head,
as long as you change the ring,
that's the only thing you can change, you can still
use this tripod head.
- So like many types of equipment,
as you get more specialized,
and you move into specialty lenses,
just like you'll have dedicated L-grips
and things like this,
L-plates for a camera that have to match
a particular camera body or a particular cuff
for a lens, this does start to get a bit more specialized
but this does work well if you're getting a single set
of shots.
And so, you use this a lot with real estate photography.
Four shots and you've covered a room, right?
- Right, this is a really good system
to get very good quality for real estate, for resorts
for any kind of virtual tour, and it's something
that I would recommend if somebody is very enthusiastic
or professional in 360 panoramic photography.
But if you're not, then something like what Rich has here
is probably a better solution at least to start with.
- So what we're doing here is we've actually used
a series of rails to sort of get the camera offset.
If you look at this from the side, you can see that
what's essentially happened is that the camera
has moved back a little bit.
So we get the camera so it stays centered.
It's centered over the middle column,
plus we've actually got it offset so where the lens
is resolving the picture is sort of centered
and we'll talk about the logic of that more
in just a moment.
And this gives us the ability of course
to do just like that.
To swing the camera around and shoot a full 360.
But instead of just doing that with the camera level,
we can actually tilt up or down.
So sometimes you might be in a really large environment.
Maybe you're looking at something like a museum
or a large venue that's multi-story like an opera house.
The ability to actually tilt the camera up
and shoot a larger field of view is gonna give you
more resolution plus maybe the ability to look up
in that panoramic photo.
What are some situations Ron, where you've shot
with multiple rows?
- For me, the multi-row usually just is necessary
when the lens is not as wide as the lens like this one.
This tripod head would allow you to use most camera lens
combinations so you're able to choose how you wish
to use it.
But the multi-row usually depends on the resolution.
If I really need more resolution
so there can be more zooming in, more detail, or for print,
then that's probably the reason
you would go with this kind of a tripod head and lens.
- And you mentioned that we have a lot of flexibility.
It's pretty easy to actually adjust this
and if we had a longer lens on there we could move that
in and out.
Now, we're gonna talk more about
this type of head in a moment and show you
how to set one up.
But there really is the key distinction here.
You have to think about if you're gonna go with
a specialty head that really is for single-row shooting,
that's gonna be very specific to one type of lens.
We'll show you another alternative to that
with a rail a little bit later
or if you need that ability to do multiple rows.
Now, in any case, these systems are pretty easy to adapt.
I'll show you later how my multi-row system
can also become a single-row system by just removing
a few pieces.
So as you evaluate building out your kit,
think about the pros and cons here,
and choose the one that's right for you.