Re: Precision bubble level
There might also be an issue with your head as it was leveled before, there might be a flat spot or mis-tracking during it's rotation, so also check for that... (I'm assuming that your rotation axis is above the leveling device on your head...) Putting a panoramic head directly under your camera on a leveled tripod plate should rotate level (or there's an issue somewhere...)
Steve K
Re: Precision bubble level
leveling is oddly strangely difficult. There are many stories that bubble levels in mounts (RRS or Arca), camera and a digital back are not in agreement. That's my experience - I have three different answers. Each piece of gear has its own independent spirit.In-field negotiation tends to be best in resolving
this: correction by eye.
Re: Precision bubble level
Regarding the "Ebisu makes a credit card..." Are these available in the USA?
Re: Precision bubble level
I have watch more photographer spend more time leveling their camera then they spend on composition.
Throw the levels away or only use then when you are photographing building were you need the back plumb to the building.
One simple tilt of the back plus a swing and the horizon is on a tilt across the ground glass.
Best thing to do is take a good long look at the image on the ground glass and make adjustments as needed. Which sometimes includes tilting the head of the tripod to level the horizon on the ground glass. Yes the camera is no longer level to the ground.
1 Attachment(s)
Re: Precision bubble level
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Peter De Smidt
Regarding the "Ebisu makes a credit card..." Are these available in the USA?
No, not in the USA nor in Canada.
Quality Tools UK will ship them.
Here's the one I use:
Attachment 168741
Re: Precision bubble level
Re: Precision bubble level
The gist of the problem is to make things look rectilinear or properly horizontal and vertical, even if they're not! And that's why I rely on GG grids on such occasions, and almost never bother with levels. Enlarger alignment is a different subject.
Re: Precision bubble level
Peter, if you'd like to buy the Ebisu card type level, let me know. It'll cost 2,000 JPY, including e-Packet shipping.
Kumar
Re: Precision bubble level
None of this stuff is really precise. I've got the yaw correction of my biggest enlarger attached to a micrometer-driven forged silicon bronze heavy naval artillery aiming mount that would easily cost forty or fifty thousand dollars to make today. Not exactly a ballhead. I found it for free, of course. And I had access to borrow lasers corrected for the curvature of the earth if necessary. And I dealt with a company which had a device that would draw a contour map in millionths of an inch showing the dimensional changes in a solid granite block induced by you merely breathing on it. Hardly one of my humble modified Saunders vac easels. But it might be quite handy if you're spending a billion $ on an observatory. So "precision" is a relative term.
Re: Precision bubble level