Does anybody has an experience how to establish nodal point on Leica M6 for panoramic photography. Any tips, references, or links appreciated.

Michael Borek

-- michael borek (michborek@aol.com), February 17, 2002

Answers

By "nodal point" do you mean a central point i.e. point of concentration? or that point which will yield the greatest depth of focus?

-- Earl Belofsky (belofsky@pacbell.net), February 17, 2002.

I won't know the answer even when you answer my question, but to figure the nodal point you'll need to provide the focal length of the lens you'll be using. Probably for your purposes, the distance of the focal length, measured forward from the film, will give you a good place to start.

-- Michael Darnton (mdarnton@hotmail.com), February 17, 2002.

I've heard... that the half the focal length in front of the film is about right. I've also heard that you can rotate for pano's by approximating the placement of the aperture blades of the lens.

In either, or the above case, its the lens that determins where the rotational pivot should be for the panorama, not the camera.

-- Charles (cbarcellona@telocity.com), February 17, 2002.

I'm not being very helpful, but try going to

www.google.com and enter "camera nodal point" in that search engine.

A host of useful articles are found immediately, such as this one by the manufacturer of a sliding bracket which includes notes on finding the nodal point of a rangefinder camera.

http://www.kaidan.com/nodalpoint.html

-- Mani Sitaraman (bindumani@pacific.net.sg), February 17, 2002.

I was thinking in a drill... ... but better forget it

-- r watson (al1231234@hotmail.com), February 17, 2002.

The tripod threads on the Leica handgrip are centered just below the lens.

-- Frederick Stafford (fstafford@earthlink.net), February 19, 2002.

Since the nodal point is the point of rotation around which there is no parallax, it seems to uninitiated me that that would be where the aperture blades are. However, this point moves with focus. So you probably have to set it for a hyperfocal distance at the aperture you intend to shoot at, and then accept some parallax shift with other settings.

With a lens like the 12/5.6 voigtlander, this shouldn't be a big problem.

-- rob (rob@robertappleby.com), February 19, 2002.