GigaPan Epic Pro robotic camera mount shipping in April

We found GigaPan's Epic 100 robotic camera mount to be an impressive if not entirely practical solution when we got our hands on it back in May of last year, but it's unfortunately of little use with a full-size DSLR. GigaPan is set to fill that gap with its new Epic Pro model, which it's just announced will be available in April. This model will accommodate DSLR and lens combinations up to ten pounds, and give you a 7.2V, 4300mAH rechargeable battery (as opposed to the AAs used in the smaller models), along with a few new features like a multiple triggering option to take multiple shots at each image position. Of course, the Pro model also comes with a pro-minded price -- $895, to be specific.

[I was swhite237 I lost my passwo Posted Mar 15th 2010 6:36PM]

I want.

[jfally Posted Mar 15th 2010 6:39PM]

@I was swhite237 I lost my passwo

I want it more! Give it to me oh yes!

[David G Posted Mar 15th 2010 9:07PM]

@jfally
More! More of that!

[Groovy100 Posted Mar 16th 2010 4:12AM]

@I was swhite237 I lost my passwo Hmmmm... This is quite expensive and I'm not sure it's any better than the AutoMate from the GadgetWorks.

http://www.thegadgetworks.com/

The latter comes with a windows mobile pda which runs an app that gives you crazy amounts of customisation including writing tracking programs in its own programming language.

[One Love Posted Mar 16th 2010 11:37AM]

Hack this into a turret gun.

[Brent1700 Posted Mar 15th 2010 8:23PM]

$895.. not bad

[J1024 Posted Mar 15th 2010 8:29PM]

Please, I can build the same thing out of Legos....

[Tumbleweed Posted Mar 15th 2010 8:35PM]

Is there something like this for astrophotography? *That* I would actually find interesting. This, not so much.

[Whiternoise Posted Mar 15th 2010 10:56PM]

@Tumbleweed Depends what you mean really.

You could put your camera on this and set it for long exposures at each rotation point.

Or, you could mount the SLR on a telescope and program the guide motor to travel most of the sky, taking exposures as you go.

The difficulty is that the stars appear to move as the Earth rotates so it would be very difficult to shoot the sky over an evening because the stars in your field of view change quickly enough to ruin the panorama.

You would be better off with a few SLRs rigged to take a picture at exactly the same time (perhaps with IR triggering) all pointed in different directions.

Again, it mainly depends on what you want to get out of it. Doing a gigapixel sky panorama is tricky, even for professional scientists!

[SkonOfVulcan Posted Mar 16th 2010 6:08PM]

@Whiternoise So how much for one on which you can mount 6 Hubble telescopes?

[pkm Posted Mar 15th 2010 9:11PM]

I'm just wondering if they give you the ability to embed the image viewer on your site if you choose to.

Personally I see very little desire/need for this. For doing simple panoramas why waste $900 when doing them yourself is rather easy and on the off chance you want something with all the extra detail, why would you want to be tied down to their site for hosting it?

[atomicthumbs Posted Mar 15th 2010 9:28PM]

@pkm

Good luck taking a good set of pictures with your lens at maximum focal length over the set of an hour.

Bonus good luck stitching them together.

[pkm Posted Mar 15th 2010 9:32PM]

@atomicthumbs No need to be at maximum focal length for the vast majority of pano's people will be creating, you don't really need the mass level of detail this produces for anything other than to show a couple people for fun.

It sure as hell won't carry over to any print medium or any other website without the gigapan image viewer.

[zachbeale Posted Mar 15th 2010 9:52PM]

Compare it to a manfrotto Qtvr pano head...it's actually very much worth it. However, I'd like to know how it works with hdr. I'd also like to know the speed...I mainly do landscape panos, and clouds tend to move, which makes stitching hard.

[SiriusDoggy Posted Mar 16th 2010 1:02AM]

@zachbeale
It should work just great for HDR panos as one of the features mentioned on their website is the ability to take up to 20 images in each location before moving for the next shot. Since most HDR's are created by combining only 3-5 shots, this should work just great.

[zachbeale Posted Mar 16th 2010 9:20AM]

@SiriusDoggy

That's good that it supports HDR work, however, the number of shots needed really depends on the situation at hand, a higher dynamic range in your scene can call for significantly more than three or so exposures. When in doubt, shoot more. I usually bracket nine, just to gather as much data as possible, unless it's obvious that fewer shots are needed, ie, indoors, cloudy days.

My big worry is speed.

Oh, and portability. I hike with my gear a lot, and the QTVR is much easier to haul around than this damn thing.

[CL Posted Mar 16th 2010 1:18AM]

Would be great if they add timelapse or even astro tracking mode....

[pchaps Posted Mar 16th 2010 10:29AM]

FYI Engagdet... Panorama-taking usually involves a wide-angle-to-normal (~20-50mm) lens, which, along with the average pro-sumer type DSLR (pros won't use this thing....) weighs well under 10 lbs. I think this thing is more geared towards VR-type shots for panoramas of vehicle interiors, museums, real estate, etc. In those situations, average DSLR resolution and quality is more than what's normally required given they usually end up highly compressed on the web anyway.

[DaMaDo Posted Mar 16th 2010 11:55AM]

$895 is not a bad price at all...the manual version can run upwards of $860: http://reallyrightstuff.com/rrs/Customkititems.asp?kc=Ult-Pro-OPP-L&eq=
Some manual solutions run into the $1000s

[xrez Posted Mar 29th 2010 4:09PM]

Here is a hands on video review of the Gigapan Epic Pro. http://www.xrez.com/blog/gigapan-epic-pro-video-review/