Is a pan head a necessity?

[Kekhotep]

The Book, Architectural Photography (a Sinar publication) recommends buying a tripod with a pan-tilt head. I really like the Ries tripods, problem is, none of them pan.

How important is the pan feature of a tripod head in large format photography, of which I am a neophyte.

[Kekhotep]

Oops, thank you.

[jp498]

I use a tripod with no head for 8x10. A tiltall gives me pan-tilt for 4x5 and smaller. It depends on what sort of photography you are going to be doing.

[Poisson Du Jour]

Either move the tripod to fundamentally change the viewpoint, or tap the pan head control to adjust viewpoint. My goodness, I cannot imagine life without a pan function. Photographers will have their own preferences though.

[Bruce Osgood]

Tripod tilt is very important in Architectural photography. Tilt coupled with the camera standards' tilt will give you a symmetrical image. In landscape photography it is less important unless you are photographing a mountain near by and want to reach the top and the cameras rise won't do it.

Panning is more convenient than necessary -- you can move the camera -- but may introduce a need for film plane swing, nothing wrong with that.

Sinar makes a tripod head that tilts but does not pan. It is very expensive, IMO. There are many heads available but be careful in selecting one that will support the weight of the camera in it's tilting.

Just my 2 cents

[Bill Burk]

Looks like the Ries tripods have a locknut that comes up from the bottom. In that case, you'd have no trouble loosening the nut, twisting the camera and tightening again.

[L Gebhardt]

I use a ball head for my 4x5 field camera, and find it works just fine. I do not find I need a pan head for normal photography. If I had an 8x10 I think I would need to look at a different tripod and head. What type of camera are you using?

[BenZucker]

Sinar makes a tripod head that tilts but does not pan. It is very expensive, IMO. There are many heads available but be careful in selecting one that will support the weight of the camera in it's tilting.

Unless they make an other head, The one you are thinking of pans and tilts(2 axises of movement, the third is achieved between the rail and railclamp), and if you are using a sinar view camera makes for very quick adjustments and a rigid connection between the rail clamp and tripod

[Vaughn]

The Ries heads pan very easily. One just has to be careful not to pan the head right off the pod...which is difficult to do unless one starts panning around and around.

The heads come with a white piece of plastic material that goes between the pod and the head to allow for smooth panning.

Vaughn

[Ian Grant]

My three main tripods have pan/tilt heads. My Manfrotto in Turkey has a two way head and seperate pan lock which I prefer less to the 2 tripods I use in the UK which have a pan & tilt fucntion controlled by the handle, you do need to level the tripod first but I find them much quicker to use.

I also use a lighter tripod that fits inside my small backpack for 5x4 work with a ball head and that's the slowest and least convient to use.

Ian