360 panorama Shanghai, flash panorama, 3d panorama, 360 photography Shanghai

360 panorama Shanghai, flash panorama, 3d panorama, 360 photography Shanghai

Determining the Nodal Point of a Lens
While it is not entirely essential to accurately position your camera for each image, it does make things a LOT easier if the lens is rotated as close as possible around its nodal point. By doing so, you remove parallax errors which may require a lot of retouching to make things look right in the finished panorama.
Determining the nodal point of a lens is quite easy to do visually. You will need two vertical features to use as reference points e.g. a doorway, flag/light pole, corner of a all etc... One must be very close to the camera, the other, far away. You will also need an adjustable tripod pano head or a focussing rail to adjust the position of the camera relative to the axis of rotation. Accuracy will be in the order of 1mm for a circular fisheye lens. Accuracy will be greater with the near object as close to the camera as possible.
The diagram below shows what happens in the three possible situations. Note that the relative positions of the objects on each side of the gap is determined from the nodal point of the lens, not the axis of rotation.
Legend
Rotation axis
Camera & nodal point

Rotation axis at nodal point

For years, I have been using for panoramic shootings a 303-Plus (+) head. I have decided to switch to a 303-SPH which is a very good choice to expand its use to Quicktime VR 360°/180° shootings. After a few days of use and tests (with all due respect for its manufacturing and design quality), a few issues appeared :

Inaccuracy of the swing system : the system only holds marks for each degree to align by hand in front of a spot but there is no blocking mark. Reproducing 2 (or more) identical views is therefore impossible once the swing position has been changed. => replace by a thinner horizontal 300N or MA300.

Incapacity to separate the camera and the head then placing it back quickly without changing a bit the settings of its stand rail => add a 323 quick-release bracket.
Incapacity to shoot a nadir (vertical) view outside of the tripod without changing the head or tripod configuration (if you can hold your camera with your hand, for a night-20-second-long exposure without moving, please contact the Guiness Book of World Records). => add a vertical 300N.
338 fine tunes and level
vertical 300N
The lens is too close to the tripod for vertical shooting =>vertical 300N: +15cm
No micro-positioning plate for ultra-fine positioning as on the 303 Plus for instance
No spirit level => add a 338 plate from my old 303 Plus (+)
Relative elasticity of the main rail (which "crimps" a bit even with light cameras like Canon 20D, Nikon D70, etc. => screw the 357 from former tilt axis over the rail supporting the square
outside tripod rotation
quick release 323

View the video of the first test (3 MB)

The accessories available in the Manfrotto catalog allow to slightly modify a 303 SPH and avoid some of these issues.
Add-ons include: 300N (x2), 338 plate, 357 rail and 323 quick release (see pictures above).
This "304 VR" (with its imaginary reference) is indeed a simple DIY device, but it can now meet 100% of my needs for shooting 360-degree-views (most of which are night-shot landscapes).