Hey Jonny, yes - it is 3/16" stainless which work hardens when bent so it is as rigid as heck now. There is a third bit which I could use if the head didn't rotate the camera around the nodal point of the lens. That Slik has a puck-like QD plate which works to rotate around which is OK for panos unless they are at the top of a mountain (not light to carry)!

Hey mcwhorter, nice results you got there - now that's what I'm talking about. I would like to be able to do that cheaply.

Hey kostya, I'm still trying pano software to see what is easiest/best. Haven't got to PTgui yet.

Thanks for the replies guys.

For stitching panos I use PTgui - very good soft, work with HDR.

For creating virtual tours you may use Tourmaker - web-based GUI for krpano. It is commercial, but you may pay for each panorama in tour.

Awesome shot, mcwhorter.

Andrew, did you make that pano head yourself that you showed in the other thread?

This isn't free, but its works well.
It is not an out of the box solution though.

http://flashpanoramas.com/player/

You take the photos (with Nodal Ninja or something similar)
Process (Stitch) them in PTGui
Then configure FPP to display them on a website.
There are alot of plugins to do different things.

Here is an example that I created using a nikon 10.5mm fisheye.
http://www.gatewayvirtualtours.com/projects/examples/dempcy/

I'm pretty sure Hugin will make it if your technique is right. But I tried a 360x180 pano once just for fun and had a lot of parallax and also didn't cover the frame completely. Maybe I'll try again sometime.

I've found a website that may enable me to create a limited functionality virtual tour, but it seems I have to already have created my 360° cylindrical or spherical pano's first. It is youvr.com

So maybe y'all know of some good 360 software?

If You managed to find a free solution (GPL preferably) than please share. I was looking for this some time ago w/o any good results. I've learned that one of the way is to use QuicTime VR, although there's not too much software for that.

Hi guys,

Not Nikon related, but amongst us there must be people with experience of this:

Does anybody know what is the cheapest and best way I can learn how to create (from zero knowledge) 360° and spherical virtual tours and use them on websites? Searching around reveals some expensive software options, but deeper searching reveals that some of them are no longer giving anykind of real support. I need cheap (or better still free) and easy to use. There are plenty of decent free and easy to use HDR and panorama packages around out there, but I haven't found any virtual tour packages that fit that description. Have any of you? I want to try it out and test the market around here. If that works I would get a faster/better/more expensive package to use for the business.

Appreciate any help.