Best Nikon lens for shooting stitched panos?

I know some people who like to use tilt/shift lenses, but I think most of us use something else.

What is your preference?

Rodney,

The reality is that any lens will work. I shoot spherical panoramas regularly with a 16mm fisheye but started shooting with the 24-70mm at 24 or the 14-24 at 14. I've shot gigapixel style stuff with the 70-200. I think its all about what you want to get out of it. If you want super high resolution stuff then go with a more telephoto lens. If you want ease of use then go with something wilder.

For example, when I shoot spherical (360° x 180°) panoramas with the 16mm lens, it takes 6 shots to cover the 360 and then 1 up and 1 down. With the 24mm lens I had to take 24 images, 3 rows of 8 to cover the entire frame. The 16mm lens doesn't provide a final image with as high a resolution as the other but still a good image.

The key to whatever lens you use is to get it to rotate around the nodal point rather than the base of the camera. If you have something very close to the lens and aren't rotating correctly then you will run into issues of parallax error. Do a quick search on google for Nodal point and you'll find a ton of resources...

Drew

Thanks Drew. I always thought using very wide angle lenses caused distortion problems.

Things like a Fisheye will definitely cause distortion but today's software is so good that it doesn't become an issue. I do all of my stitching in PtGui Pro but Photoshop PhotoMerge is pretty good as well, at least it was in CS4. These software programs can remove the distortion quite nicely.

Drew

The only time I've used the merge function in Photoshop was with a group of photos taken with my 300/2.8 AF-S Nikkor. It was a Hail Mary effort when I needed a wider lens than I had with me on a birding hike. Not knowing what I was really doing I took too many frames with too much overlap, and that led to a lot of processing timed on my old G4 Mac, but the results were worth the effort.

I've got more details on my photo blog.

You want to pivot the camera about the front nodal point. Its location will be near the center of the lens for most symmetrical lenses: Gauss, triplet (Tessar), and process type. For a wide angle (reverse telephoto) it will be behind the rear element. For a true telephoto it can be in front of the front element. For zoom lenses it can move around, and should be determined experimentally. (Always a good idea for any lens.)

I have limited experience, but that experience is that a series of images made with a decent lens rotated (level) around it's "nodal point" can create a decent stitched panoramic. In the foreseeable future, I will be using an AF Nikkor 24/2.8 to shoot a series of verticals and stitching in Photoshop - it actually works.
Pete D.

The nice thing about the Nikkor 24mm f/2.8 is that it is a relatively short lens so pivoting around the nodal point should not be too difficult. It is also very sharp. And, relatively inexpensive!

Good point about the 24, I'll try using mine next time.

Note that the nodal point thing mainly matters when there is a lot of depth in the scene with objects fairly close to the camera. If the whole scene is the same distance away, and not very close to the camera, you can get very good results just using the pivoting feature of a ballhead, or even hand-held just turning yourself. (Although in that case it might help to try to turn yourself around the camera, rather than your camera around your body.)