Homemade Panorama Bracket for Nikon Coolpix 5700
(revised September 7, 2002)

This panorama bracket can be used with any tripod that has a mounting screw directly over the tripod's swivel point. It can also be used on a monopod if you take care to level the camera for each shot. The camera mounts in vertical (portrait) orientation. The zoom is set to full wide angle.

Materials:

Aluminum strip, 1 1/2 inch wide x 1/8 inch thick, available in 3 or 4 foot lengths at hardware or building supply stores.
1- 1/4"-20-3/4" round head bolt.
2 - 1/4" wing nuts
bubble level
1 tripod knob (purchased from camera store)

Optional: spirit level that fits in camera hot shoe (purchased from camera store)

IMPORTANT:
Measurements shown in red must be exact. They allow the camera to rotate around it's nodal point. Other measurements are approximate and can vary slightly without affecting the accuracy of the bracket. Note that all holes are centered on the width of the strip.

Make sure the bent angle is EXACTLY 90°. When the flat section of shorter arm is resting on a horizontal surface, the longer arm must stand perfectly vertical. Use a carpenter's square to check angles.

Assemble the pieces and adjust the crossbar to a 90° angle. Because I wanted to be able to loosen the nut and turn the crossbar for compact storage I used only one bolt. I marked the alignment of my two pieces with permanent ink. Two bolts would give you a rigid angle.

I glued a cord to my tripod knob and drilled holes in the wing nuts for cord attachments. I've tethered these pieces to the bracket so they don't slip out of my fingers and over the edge of a canyon somewhere.

Longer strip:

Taking a series of panorama shots

To take a series of panorama shots, first level the tripod. Make sure the tripod platform is level throughout the full rotation of the tripod head.

Mount the bracket and camera. Set the bubble level on top of the camera and check to make sure camera is level throughout rotation. (Top view below)

Set camera to 'Exposure Lock' and take the first shot where best exposure is required for scene. It's much easier to fix underexposed images than overexposed images. Overlap images by about 1/3.

If objects in the foreground and background align the same way on the left and right sides of images, your camera is rotating correctly on the nodal point.

Low-angle shooting

When you set the camera at chest level or below, the scene displays upside down in he 5700's flipped out LCD screen. You can press the tiny button beneath the LCD to rotate the view while composing the shot -- a small inconvenience for a few shots.

For a large series of pano shots taken from a low angle, mount the camera with lens barrel to the lower side and rotate the bracket crossbar so the tripod pivot point falls under the front of the lens (see photo). The scene will now display correctly in the flipped out LCD. However, the rounded hand-grip side of the camera will not support a bubble level, so you'll need another method to level the camera.

Correcting Barrel Distortion in Photoshop

There will be barrel distortion in the images. When the subject has architectural elements it's essential that the distortion be corrected before assembling the panorama.

This Photoshop action corrects barrel distortion on full wide images of 4:3 size ratio (Full, UXGA, SXGA, XGA and VGA) and crops to the largest number of available pixels. Record, adjust and/or add steps to suit your own needs.

You can use Photoshop's "Automate>Batch" feature to run the action on a folder of images and save to another location.

Thanks go to Tom Bunkley for suggesting canvas resizing based on percentages.

Many thanks to Ralph Encarnacion who provided instructions for my original CP990 pano bracket. His instructions for a CP5000 bracket are at
http://www.pbase.com/panotaker/home_made_pano_bracket_for_the_5000

So, have you decided that making a panorama bracket and lugging a tripod is altogether too much trouble? How about a string-pod? The nodal point of the 5700 is directly below the front edge of the lens barrel. Tie a weighted string around the front of the lens barrel in the recessed gold trim band (this will get you close enough). Set your bubble level on the speaker/hinge platform of the 5700. Use Philo Hurbain's method shown here:
http://philohome.free.fr/tripod/shooting.htm

More information about taking and making panoramas can be found here:
http://www.panoguide.com/