GigaPan Epic Pro Robotic Panohead - GigaPixel Panoramas for DSLR's

I love his thing. There is. Learning curve. You have to spend time messing with it and learning. Every time I shoot one I learn something. But when you take one that comes out good it is awesome. The price is high but not really when you factor in everything this machine can do. I love it.

This works very well in concept, and if you go look at photos shot with it on giga pan main site there are amazing images. Lots of pros to this, but here are the negatives.I ordered one of there and after doing a couple pano's discovered that while it rotates on its motor, the angle of the camera changes by up to 2º. In a small number of shots panorama this is not a huge deal. But in a 400+ shot panorama, where the entire single image is only 5º this adds a considerable amount of error.Ok could be a fluke, so I contacted GigaPan support - which promises a 24hr response. Well after 5 days - NOTHING! I checked in after 2 days - nothing, and again after 5 daysOnly recourse I have is returning it. Which I plan on doing, but meanwhile I ordered another one, just to see if I had a lemon and hoped the new one would work better. Well this one is 3º off.. so actually worse than the first unit. I may try a 3rd example to see if it is better, but I think after trying 3 I will give up if there are still problems.This is very sad because other than the slight tilt that is introduced during motor rotation, everything else about this device works great! If they could only fix their quality control problems, it would be a great bargain for the price they charge.

I bought this for taking ultra high res landscapes to print on my 44" printer... It works great for taking images during the day, but once your shutter drops below about 1/4s, the image quality is going to start dropping off due to lack of sturdiness. Before I cover what I think are weak points for it, first I'll mention the equipment I used... The tripod is a Series-4 with only the top two leg sections extended and the gigapan is mounted directly to the tripod (although I plan to put a quick release and leveling base in the middle to make switching heads and leveling easier). I use a D800 with 70-200mm for panos; AF & VR off. Based on reading other reviews before buying this, I was already expecting the bit of "backlash" in the gear system, but figured it would be fine if there wasn't much wind. I was shooting night panos on a windless night, longest exposure in the bracket was 1/2 second and the images just aren't as sharp as they are when mounting using my pano / gimbal head. The pan gears aren't bad, but the tilt system has too much play.Inside the unit:I took the unit apart to see if there is anything that can be done to fix the sturdiness... The chassis of the unit is made of cast metal (I prefer CNC'd stuff) but at least the only plastic bit is the front control area. The controller is a good quality circuit board with an Atmel 90USB1287-16AU processor, the buttons are low profile tact switches and the LCD is a CFAH2004K-YYH-JP, It has two Rebeck stepper motors. Now for the bad part... The gears are plastic spur gears (typical in most stuff); there is a bit of backlash in the pan gear system but not too bad, they should have used anti-backlash gears though... The tilt is driven on the left side of the unit and the right arm is just there to hold the other side of the mount in place, it uses a belt drive between the gear system in the main body and the gear at the top of the arm. The belt is reinforced anti-stretch rubber and there is an adjustment that allows the tension to be changed, but due to the following the tension can't be increased enough... Digging deeper into the gears, there are bearings on them, but they are only on one end of the gear, and the plastic hub on the gear is larger than the axle, so it wobbles, also all the gears are held in place with a bolt going into a flimsy piece of metal instead of encased on both sides by metal; so if you increase the tension to get rid of the belt play the gear starts to lean sideways... The belt tension isn't the only area with play (fixable by increasing tension), the gears themselves are able to wiggle rotationally (backlash) as well as tilting around their axle due to the hub being smaller than the axle. For a camera mount (which should be stable) this is not acceptable...The Camera Mount:The camera mount the unit comes with uses what looked like a Manfrotto style quick release plate and the locking pin on it is sharp, so be careful! Also between the smaller locking area of the plate the not the best mounting hardware that attaches it to the arms of the unit, I remember some plastic in there somewhere, this just adds more wiggle to the system... I tried my camera on the mount to make sure everything works before changing it with the RRS one... after I mounted the lens foot to the quick release plate and put it on the mount, the camera body (I had a grip on it but don't remember if it was the body or grip getting in the way) gets in the way of the quick release and you can't get the camera/lens back off! I removed the foot from my lens to get it back off the mount, then promptly chucked the mount in the trash and replaced it with the superior RRS one, which uses universal arca mounts which are more stable; the RRS designed platform is easier to use, more stable and just all around better... I highly recommend getting it over the stock mount/platform.Important Notes for HDRs!If you are shooting brackets with the gigapan, and have to stop in the middle of a bracket: reset your camera to the beginning of the bracket and delete any images for that position before resuming it, since the gigapan will start that bracket over (which would get your brackets out of sequence)...My plans for the Gigapan...:I will be taking the gear systems to a local precision machine shop and have them redo them with anti-backlash gears and a re-enforced gear box. Then the backlash issues should be taken care of...I also plan on creating an auxiliary controller for it, so it can be programmed and controlled when mounted higher up out of reach...Scoring the Gigapan:Due to the poor engineering of the gear system, and the rather crappy mount, -1 (almost -2) of a star... This is a camera mount, it should be stable! Also the price, 900! That's allot! -1 star for the price, and poor packing (everything rattling around in the box when I got it)... But the only other cheap alternative for a motorized system around this price is a telescope mount, but the control system on those isn't as good for panos and bracketing... I found other robotic pano systems but the prices where outrageous! So for the time being this is the best robotic pano head for DSLR's. Perfect if you make a few mods to it! Would I recommend this? Yes, but not at this price point... Although I would be cautious getting a used one because the wear that may have occurred on the gear system...Pictures of internals, posted in user product pictures...Oh, you may not have as much issue (mount and stability) if you aren't using such a large camera/lens setup, but for the size of the unit and being the "DSLR" version I assumed it would handle it better...

If you're shooting gigapixel panos, you really need an automated head. I have a couple of multi-row pano heads, and for shooting multi-row panos, they are a pain. You have to calculate your grid, how many shots per row and column, the settings to use on the head, etc. I've shot 400 image multi-row images, only to find that I missed a couple of shots. So it's reshoot or spend hours in Photoshop trying to fix the problem.This thing eliminates that problem. Attach the camera, set the NPP (no parallax point / entrance pupal / nodal point - whatever you want to call it) and go. The NPP is not so important if you're shooting stuff that's far away. It's VERY important if you're in a smaller room, or shooting when there are near and far objects.So if you're shooting a skyline or landscapes, you'll be shooting your first gigapixel image 5 minutes after attaching the camera. Shooting in more confined spaces? You need to find the NPP for your lens/camera combination. If you don't, you'll have stitching errors - you know, when stuff does not align correctly. Unfortunately the help for finding the NPP is poor, and the thing is not designed to make it easy. For example, the bubble level is not in the center of the unit. The first step in finding the NPP for a multi-row head is to center the camera left to right. The easiest way is to attach a macro lens and point the camera straight down. The tripod screw is always the center - move the camera until this screw is centered. Can't do that here. There is nothing marking the center of the tripod head, so you have to figure it out for yourself - it's about 4 CM back from the front of the unit - that puts it about 50% of the way into the bubble level.If the bubble level would have been centered, it would have been so much easier. Expect to spend about 4 hours per lens/camera combination (or for each focal length) finding the NPP. Again, it's only critical for closer objects, indoor spaces, etc. It's not that critical for subjects several hundred feet away.Included are two licenses for the stitching software (you install it from a provided link.) The stitcher is decent - but it relies on an accurate NPP. It does not do any correction - it just stitches. BUT - it will do it with 2 gig of RAM. I shot a 60 image pano - it stitched it with no problem, with parallax errors. Then I tried stitching the images in PTGui and Autopano Giga - both crashed with memory errors (I have 3 gig available.) So once I finally set the NPP for my lenses, the included stitcher does the job. But to be clear - it will not correct ANY problems (except vignetting) - PTGui and AutoPano Giga both correct for exposure, some parallax error, etc. - but are memory hogs when it comes to multi-row panos. There a couple of settings in the stitcher to help - set the "larger blend area" on.The latest firmware allows for panning time exposures, HDR and more (as of July 2011.)If you use a heavier lens/camera combination, or require side to side adjustment, Arca Swiss makes a special camera clamp just for the Epic Pro - this user installed clamp replaces the factory supplied one. I installed this, and it's far superior to the one that comes with the unit. One caveat - the mounting screws were about 1/32" too long - this reduced the forward movement of the main adjustment plate by about an inch. I needed that inch, so took my bench grinder to the screws, then re-attached the Arca Swiss plate. Bingo - I was all set. It's around 85 bucks for the Arca Swiss clamp.I was using a Manfrotto 303SPH - the Epic Pro only costs about $200 more than that fully manual head. You will need a stable, heady duty tripod - a $35 tripod will NOT do the job. If you use a carbon tripod, you'll need to sandbag it. The head is large - and since you'll be using a zoom lens and DSLR, that's a lot of weight moving around. Most tripods have a hood on the center column for a weight or sandbag. Use it.My goal is to eventually replace all my tripod heads with this unit - it just depends on how well I can set the NPP for all my lens / focal length combinations.Oh yea - it also includes trigger cables for a bunch of cameras, charger and custom battery. Gigapan makes a backpack for the Epic Pro, but I found a Pelican 1500 Case) fits it perfectly, with room for the charger and some extras. I removed all the padding except the lid, base and outside edge, then trimmed a little space for the control area in the lid padding. I'll add some photos later.

Works very well. Completely happy with this purchase. I've been able to capture amazing panoramic images.