Why didn’t anyone tell me…

I want to bring up something that maybe is not particularly obvious to people considering a repeatable panorama head (specifically, the 360 Precision family). I have what is now called the Absolute from them, and it’s incredibly precise. For instance. Last week we had fires burning in California and the smoke blew across the hills in such a way at sunset to create a curious sky. I grabbed the camera and tripod, popped on the panorama head, and went out to the hill we live on. Brackets of 5 later and I turned the work over to the computer. I opened my template, hit Go, and left it for a while. And even though it’d been months since I had done a panorama (Real Life in the way), it was perfect. No flaws, no surprises – everything was right. Just the way I expected. If I had pulled out my old Manfrotto head, I’d probably never have finished it. But with this, it was easy. Casual. Pop, click, stitch, and done. Sometimes it really pays to frontload the work.