GigaPan EPIC 100 - Manual (Page 14)

GigaPan User Guide
11
What is the nodal point?
The nodal point of your camera is the point about which you must rotate your camera
for perfect panoramas.
Why does it matter?
When you rotate a camera about its nodal point, you eliminate an effect called paral-
lax, which causes objects to appear to have shifted when viewed from different lines
of sight. To see this in action, close your left eye and hold your right thumb up close
to your right eye. Hold your left thumb up at arm’s length, such that it gets blocked by
your right thumb. Now close your right eye, and open your left. You’ll notice that while
you could only see your right thumb with your right eye, you can see both thumbs with
your left. This is because you’re now viewing your thumbs from a different line of sight.
Using this concept, you can eliminate parallax from your camera.
Mount your camera on the EPIC. 1.
Select a scene that is similar to the above thumb experiment - one object in the 2.
foreground, and another in the distant background, being obscured by the fore-
ground object. (A row of pillars or street lights is ideal).
Note: Ideally, the foreground object should be at least 10 feet away from your
camera.
Set your camera to its full zoom level. 3.
Position your camera so that the foreground object is at the left edge of your 4.
screen, and the background object is obscured behind it.
2.8 Finding your camera’s nodal point