Acratech Spherical Panoramic Head for Sigma 8mm f/3.5 Fisheye Lenses

2020-08-21T10:01:31

I bought this for doing Google 360's and it works great and easy to set up. Note this is one with the lens ring is only for the Sigma 8mm 3.5 It may work with other lenses but that is on you, it states for the the Sigma 8mm 3.5 only. I like how simple it is to use. You simple start with any of the 1-4 positions in portrait mount mode and then rotate to capture all four sides for a 360 pano.

MARK J.

2020-06-16T11:53:44

Purchased couple years ago and still my favorite pano head for my Sigma 8mm lens, easy to setup, I use the Sigma lens on Nikon full frame body with a crop of 5:4 (30x24) as that is the actual size of the circle picture. I used to make 4 directional shots, but now only 3 with additional exposures and it works great, it create 10.000x 5000 Pixel panorama, a small portion of nadir will be missed but great to put your logo there or easy to edit with PS. This pano head is great, as it is exactly at the pivot so you always on point without big haste, Sigma 8mm offer the most sharp pictures on Nikon full body, especially if you work with HDR, it is sharpest at F11-F13. The Pano Head will fit mostly all tripods, recommending to level the tripod base before shotting and rotating the Pano head other wise it will not works as the level will change if the tripods base is not in proper level. I used it for years now and a lot, well made, no one scratch, solid material and very sturdy.

MEC4D

2017-05-26T09:49:26

Purpose-built to standardize the set-up process for capturing 360° photo spheres, the Acratech Spherical Panoramic Head for Sigma 8mm F/3.5 Fisheye Lenses is a winner. Executing a proper photo-sphere is not exceedingly difficult, but you have to handle a number of tasks in a consistent manner if you plan to use the output files for client work and online. This pano head is built for that purpose -- to execute 4 consecutive level shots with a Sigma 8mm Fisheye lens on a DX body to stitch together in Post and create a 360 photo. If you want to do this regularly, you will commit several pieces for this purpose -- attach the Sigma 8mm Fisheye to the circular lens mount (which has a sturdy steel two-prong fork that clamps reliably into position atop the rotating head). Keep an Arca-swiss plate permanently fixed to the base of the rotator head. Might even store everything in a dedicated foam core hardshell case. Then the entire kit is ready to go, rapidly deployed to an arca-swiss ball head, which serves as the leveling base. Level that ball head first so it compensates for uneven flooring, legs, or terrain, because you do need a level base before you rotate the camera, otherwise you will end up with tilted 360• photo spheres. Attach the DX body to the lens. The setup will be in Portrait position so that the 8mm fisheye captures a 90° width and 180° vertical top-to-bottom. The photo will in fact have circular top and bottom vignetting, but those get assimilated properly in post. (as info, the lens mounts at a slight incline, on purpose, so that you get overlapping imagery at the vertical apex, and create a "hole" at the nadir. On camera, the Live View circular leveling compass you will show yellow converging lines just below the horizontal green line.) Once leveled (the rotator head has a bubble very close but not quite 100% centered under the center of the lens, so you will verify leveling by rotating and making minor adjustments until you are centered), the head rotates freely and on a flat plane to capture 4 images (or if you are a post-editing pro, you can capture 3 bracketed exposures of each, and process 12 images to balance exposure). The resulting files are stitched together in post with minimal alignment issues. The Acratech Pano head and the Sigma lens together will cost over $, but you will hold the key to creating consistent 360° photo spheres.

MIGUEL L.

2017-05-03T08:35:14

I'm a Nodal Ninja fan and have multiple panoramic products from them, but this time decided to go with the competing Acratech head for 8.5mm fisheye Sigma. It's well-thought out. The fit is just right, and the unit is very solid. Not having to fiddle with settings while shooting panoramas is so convenient and really speeds up the process. Pretty impressive.

ARA T.