The Pano Dilemma

More on travel, packing, and gear

Multi-shot pano made without a lot of special gear of the iconic Flatirons.

I'm on my way to Patagonia right now to lead a small group of photographers for 16 days. Packing has been a stress test for me, due to baggage weight and size limitations, plus a good dose of senioritis that makes carrying a heavy backpack an issue.

In particular I was faced with my usual conundrum of whether or not to bring all my panorama gear with me. In my studio we print some very, very large panos for installation in hospitals or offices (and even homes). I'm talking up to 30 feet wide.

I use all Really Right Stuff equipment, from tripod to multi-row pano gear. I love their tightly engineered tolerances and awesome workmanship. However, the entire multi-row pano setup is heavy and bulky.

I bring this up because you're all interested in fine art printing, so my dilemma may also be yours, I suspect. The question is whether to pano or not and, if the answer is yes, then how to pano for the resulting print.

My Data Points

For me personally, it's a big decision. If I want to do a mural that is over five feet in any dimension, then pixels do matter. But, surprisingly, not always as much as a tack sharp image. For example, in my office I have a 9-foot wide mural taken with a 12MP Nikon. I used a 24mm tilt-shift lens, which gave a sharp image front-to-back. By printing on canvas, the resulting image looks great when viewed at the appropriate distance.

Fortunately, I shoot a 102MP medium format Fujifilm GFX100. That alone takes some of the pressure off. I can print fairly large with one image and that many pixels. But 30-feet? Probably not.

The next data point for me is the weight of the entire multi-row setup. That adds an additional three pounds to my gear. As is I'm at the maximum weight limits for my check-in and my camera roll-on. If I take the entire setup I have to leave something else in the studio.

Finally, there is the issue of actually setting up in the field. If I were going alone, I would take the entire setup without even thinking. But when I travel with others, I have to account for setting up the tripod absolutely level, then leveling the head and the camera. Then testing the range of sweep, accounting for dynamic range, figuring overlap, checking results, etc, etc, etc.

Finally, my decision

So, what did I decide? I compromised... with myself, of course. I decided to take a single rail and tested it with all my lenses to determine the nodal point. With that established, and shooting vertical, of course, I could use my 23mm lens (18mm in 35mm format) when I'm close to the subject, or my 32-64 (25-50mm) or my 100-200 (80-160mm) when further away.

That allows me to carry one light pano rail and shoot a 3-5 image single-row pano, enough for a very large format print. Problem solved, I think. I'll let you know how it works out.

I'd love to know how you handle the pano gear situation when you're backpacking in the field.