Entrance Pupil position as the pivot point for camera panning

[Mathew Collins]

Hi,

 

What is the importance of making Entrance Pupil position as the pivot point for camera panning?

 

Please share your inputs.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

-Mathew Collins

[Tristan Noelle]

If you mean what I think you mean, setting the pivot point of your pan at the optical center or nodal point of the lens is mostly only useful for FX work, like practical mattes and miniatures. Or in stills for shooting 360 for plates, etc.

 

Setting the pivot at the nodal point removes parallax so objects close to the lens do not appear to move relative to objects far away, which is important for forced perspective or glass mattes where you need close objects to appear the same distance as background objects from the camera.

 

Beyond that, Im not aware of a reason to do it for everyday applications. Id be curious to find out if there is any. Its rather difficult without special equipment becuase theres so much weigt behind the lens that balancing the camera on the tripod becomes difficult.

 

In virtual applications its often desirable to set the pivot point to where a theoretical sensor would be, introducing parallax intentionally to make it feel more cinematic. That is what Roger Deakins suggested to the makers of WALL-E when he was brought in to consult. Hope this was close to what you were looking for.

 

Tristan

[Mathew Collins]

Thanks much Tristan. My question was whether in the normal shooting cinematographers set Entrance Pupil position as the pivot point for camera panning. The documents which i found in internet are similar to the knowledge which you have shared.

Edited October 28, 2017 by Mathew Collins

[David Hessel]

No they generally Ballance the camera and lens on a fluid head, with no regard for where the nodal point of the lens is. Pivoting around the nodal point of a camera is only necessary if stitching a panorama.