GigaPan EPIC Pro - Manual (Page 20)

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2.6 Set up your camera
1. Turn on your camera and select the ‘Manual mode’.
2. Adjust the focus and exposure. (ISO, aperture value, shutter speed )
3. Set your camera’s ‘White Balance’ (Daylight, Cloudy, Tungsten or Fluorescent) based
on the lighting conditions. You may use a device such as an expodisc, color card, or
grey card to get better white balance.
4. Connect the electronic trigger cable to the trigger cable port, which is located to the left
of the LCD display. Connect the cable to the camera.
5. Set the EPIC Pro ‘Time per Pic’ in the ‘Options’ submenu to ensure enough time for the
camera to be ready to capture another photograph. You need to account for the shutter
speed and enought time to write the image to flash memory. It is important to allow
sufficient ‘Time per Pic’ to avoid missing photos.
Follow the steps below to optimize your digital camera settings for panorama taking.
Camera rail adjustment knob
Camera rail
does not effect the height adjustment, which will be adjusted to the center of the lens or
as close as possible.
9. Adjust the rail forward to center the mass over the axis of rotation unless you are very
close to your subject. If you are close to your subject you will need to use a lens that
allows you to position the camera rail so that the lens is approximately at the optical
center or entrance pupil which minimizes parallax error. This position will be close to
the region of the lens between the front glass element and the focus ring in most cases.
10. Adjust the height of the camera rail and the camera mounting plate so that the center
of the lens is at the level of the platform thumbscrews attached to the EPIC Pro arms.
Loosen the platform thumbscrews to allow for adjustment of the camera mounting plate
and lens height. A few larger cameras, such as the Nikon D3X, will not allow you to
perfectly center the height of the lens to the midpoint. For the majority of usage, this
should not be an issue.