Sunwayfoto CR-30 360 Panorama Head Kit

Hard to use if you have a battery grip in the vertical mode! The 3/8 to 1/4-20 adapter sent with didn't thread into the hole! Not enough adjustment in the vertical mode!

Precise, lightweight but marginal for my MFT cameras such as the EM10. It has a sliding plate to accommodate off center tripod sockets which is very handy for small cameras. I will use mine mostly with the Sony RX100. I will still use the Panosaurus for my heavier cameras. The illustration shows the Panosaurus compared to the CR-30 when folded.

When I purchased this head I thought it would be the perfect panoramic device for my 4/3 Lumix. It almost was. Couple of stupid things: the vertical separations are 15 degrees, the horizontal separations are 30 degrees. The camera is oriented vertically so that with a 50 mm equivalent lens, the horizontal separations cannot be used! They should have done the opposite, more separations horizontally than vertically. The second thing is that at least vertically you cannot set the angle other than in the pre-sets. Couple of fixes: - I altogether removed the screw to tighten the detents for the horizontal panning and taped over the hole with electrical tape against dust. Problem solved. - An undocumented feature of this head is that you can just take apart the horizontal and vertical arms, flip over the silver washer (the one with the angle marks), put the arms back together, and the detents are gone. You'll see why when you look at the washer. With these 2 changes, this is the perfect-enough pano arm. The only complaint I have left is that I have to use a separate bubble level for adjustment. Not a big deal. Finally, I wish I had purchased the cr-30c, because I would just then leave the arca-swiss plate on all the time...

Looks great in photos but not a professional piece of equipment. May be OK if you only want to take a panoramic photo once in a while. Flimsy design. I will only be making panoramic photos a couple of times, so I will deal with it.

Just getting into virtual tour photography and didn't want to spend a ton on a pano head. Using this one with a Nikon D7100 and it handles the weight of the camera and a Tokina 12-24 well. Little hard to decipher how to put it together but take a look at the website photo for ideas. Works great but you need a ball head and a sturdy tripod to use it properly.

The CR-30 360 panorama head has many features to recommend it but also has some limitations that detract from ease of use and versatility. The head is sturdy and well made in general and will easily support a small consumer camera, micro 4/3rds camera, or small DSLR. The panning head turns smoothly and locks securely with or without detents at certain degrees of rotation. The millimeter markings on the scales are crisp and easy to read. Now the not so good news. The head comes with no instructions whatsoever. Not only is there no explanation how to assemble the components but there is no explanation how to use the product. The assembly is not too difficult if you study the photo of the unit on the website. However, to use the product to make accurate panoramas you will need to search the web and read articles about how to calibrate the head for your lenses and then how to pan to achieve frames that will stitch together well. Luckily there are several good articles on the web concerning these techniques. Another annoying but not serious concern is that an allen wrench, provided with the head, is needed to attach the mounting plate to the camera. This mounting plate is then attached to the head. I am concerned this small wrench is likely to get lost in my camera bag. Fortunately, a small coin, such as a penny can also be used to turn the screw that attaches the mounting plate. My other objections are more difficult to remedy. In order to make photos that will stitch seamlessly the near entrance pupil of your lens must be located on the axis of rotation. The two slides of the head allow moving your camera body along two mutually perpendicular axes until the lens pupil is in the correct position relative to the vertical axis of rotation used for most panoramas. However, if you want to take multi-row panoramas then the entrance pupil of the lens also needs to lie on the horizontal axis of rotation. The mounting plate does not allow this.

I bought this pano head for real estate photography and it works although setting it up just right is difficult so I would be curious to compare it to another pano head. Also they included a tripod brushing/adapter that didn't fit.