Digital camera mount
The image below shows the "Peace river studios" "3Sixty" camera mount for taking panoramic photographs. It is shown holding a Nikon F3 film camera, but of course this could just as well have been any digital SLR.
The aim of the mount is to position the pinhole eqivalent point on the lens directly above the centre of rotation. It is necessary to position the camera along its optical axis and up and down relative to the camera (in and out of the image) to do this. The mechanics of this can be seen in the above image. On the base of the mount is a rotation axis that allows the camera to be rotated on the tripod by fixed increments of 30 or 20 degrees. This is accomplished by having a small white roller roll around one of two cams on the rotation axis. The roller is kept against the cam by the spring visible in the picture. This rotation device only allows easy rotation in one direction, so making it easy to remember where you are when shooting. The roller can also be lifted off the cam completely for easy camera rotation. The large white nylon screw bearing on the front of the camera is adjusted such that the camera optical axis is parallel to the ground. The whole unit is levelled using a small spirit level just visible below the spring by using the normal tripod adjustments.
This mount allows all the conditions for an easy to stitch panorama to be produced. It does need to be carefully set up for the particular camera and lens in use. Zoom lenses do not necessarily have a fixed equivalent pinhole position, so it is best to use this device with fixed focal length lenses.
