[Philippp]

Hi The Ether
Since the fixtures have some depth to them, I use a spherical head (older Manfrotto SPH 303), which would cause mis-alignments. 99% of the time I rotate around a fixed point. The only time I displace the camera horizontally and/or vertically in relation to the subject is if I'm dealing with a truly flat surface, like a large canvas, mural, or the like.
What's your experience?

[the_ether]

What's your experience?

Not done any stitching. Was just curious if a specialist head was needed for your kind of shots or whether PTGui worked well enough without one.

[Philippp]

Not done any stitching. Was just curious if a specialist head was needed for your kind of shots or whether PTGui worked well enough without one.

PTGUI is very capable. I have stitched a lot of hand-held panos together by leaning myself up against something, and rotating the camera around my lens' point of of zero parallax. Your mileage will vary depending on how stable you are, and how forgiving your foreground is. Shooting something at a distance, with grass or dirt in the foreground is easy. Images which include structured foregrounds (furniture, grout lines, railings, etc.), combined with a wide lens, are less forgiving.