I think I’m ready to purchase a tripod head for taking panoramas, but in looking through the options, I realize in don’t understand the feature sets very well.
Doew anyone have any experience and want to offer advice, be it general or very specific?
I am no expert, but I would look for sturdiness, a long operating handle
and smooth travel.
What type of panoramas are you going to do? (ie. single-row or multi-row?) And what’s your budget?
Are you going to use the tripod solely for panoramas, or are you going to use it for other types of photography as well? If you’re going to use it for non-pano work, will you be OK swapping heads every time you want to switch between them?
The panos I do are single-row, so I use a ball-head with arca-swiss style release and swivel base. Along with a second arca-swiss style QR base and a couple of different-length plates it’s very easy to set up, and very reasonably priced (I think the whole rig cost me about $60.) If this fits the bill, you might want to see if you can get one locally to you so that you can check the smoothness of the movement.
If you’re going to do multi-row shots, I’d recommend a gimbal head with arca-swiss release. In general they’re cheaper and take less time to set up than a nodal-ninja, but might be cumbersome to lug around. I played with one from Milano about a year ago and was quite impressed with it.
If money is no object and you’re going to dedicate a tripod and do multi-row panos, you can always go with a Gigapan. 
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I built my own for about $20 and an hour worth of time. The only thing to worry about is the tripod head. I had a cheap one I got from eBay laying around. But that was the difficult part, how to put it on the tripod.
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This is the same route I went with (though mine is considerably flimsier than yours, I’ll admit). I mostly rely on the robustness of Hugin to help me pull things together in the final stitching, so I don’t mind being a little sloppy with the diy head…
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I got a Panosaurus, it’s sturdy but really bulky and heavy. In the end i used it only a couple of times and now it lives somewhere in storage.
Nowadays i tend to shoot panoramas freehand, and that seems to work ok for me.
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That’s a good point, actually. I only built the diy pano head because I was planning on shooting full 360° spheres for a project. If I’m just stitching a few shots or some simple rows I’ll just wing it… 
So far I always did my pano free hand and so far I never missed a special pano head - given I would carry my tripod with me, which is almost never the case, but I always have some tape with me.
But then I’m sure not a pro photographer
If you already have a ballhead, you can use something like this: Nodal Slider
This page: RSS Tutorial
or this: Smug Mug Tutorial
will show you how to find the points where there is no parallax for your lenses.
@Karl thanks for the suggestions, I’ll have a look into the things you’ve mentioned.
I probably want multirow and have $150 to spend.
I’ve had a horrible time winging it so far, so bad in fact that I feel must be missing something with hugin. Hence the purchase of a dedicated head.
I’m still relatively young so I carry a pretty good amount of gear when I shoot, another head or even a whole tripod isn’t a big deal. I don’t mind swapping heads, I’m a slow shooter anyway.
@vato thanks for the links, I’ll read up.
@paperdigits hey, I’ve been shooting panos, mostly 360°, for years.
You quickly will grow to mind it 
To start, any head will do. I started with the Panosaurus. It’s a strong and sturdy head. It’s adaptable to most lens/body combinations, it’s cheap and relatively light. Downsizes are that mounting the camera quickly becomes tiresome because it uses butterfly screws for that. I modded mine to use a quick-release mounting plate clamp so I could simply clip my camera in place, but that added weight. It is also big. I had it with me up many a mountain, but you do quickly grow tired of it.
When I bought a fisheye lens I decided to make my own head. And I wouldn’t have gotten far if not for my girl, who is an expert at metal work and has access to metal and to machines. It is tailored specifically to my lens and camera body, with no possibility of accidental misalignment. As a result of that, it is small, the smallest you can get, and with a fisheye lens offers zenith coverage. It is simply a strip of metal bent at about 45° with two holes in the right place. It’s made from stainless steel with plasma-cut holes for the camera and tripod screws. It works flawlessly. The downside is that you quickly grow to also want a quick-release plate, so adding one results in a heavy hunk of metal, and it’s only suitable for that specific camera/lens combination.
Some 360° panoramas from my abandoned website: http://londonlight.org/zp/Real-Estate/House-of-Karin/
Shot using a 10 year old DSLR, a cheap fisheye lens and the even cheaper home-made head.
I upgraded my gear this year and switched to a different camera manufacturer, and like you I also spent the last few months considering my options. Despite being young and fit, weight does end up playing a major role, especially when you’re climbing up a mountain also carrying food and water, a tent, etc. The choice came down to two: Nodal Ninja 3 MKII, or a Bushman Sandbug or Gobi (Sandbug is for mirrorless only, while Gobi is for both mirrorless and DSLR). Both allow full 360x180° coverage using fisheye or normal lenses.
If you’re beginning with panoramas, I’d say make your own, and you will quickly learn what you need.
http://wiki.panotools.org/Heads#Self_made
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