Nodal Ninja 3 MKII

You can mount your camera on the Nodal Ninja 3 in portrait or landscape orientation Even if you shell out big bucks for the Manfrotto MH057A5-LONG pan head combo, you’ll still be limited to single-axis panoramas. The fun of shooting panoramas really begins with 360x180-degree spherical pans, which is where the Nodal Ninja comes in.

Thanks to the Ninja 3’s rotating vertical arm you can tilt your Nikon up and down as well as side to side. Use a fisheye or wide-angle lens and you can capture a complete virtual environment from the sky right down to your feet in as little as six shots.

Every piece of essential hardware is included in the Starter Package (just add software), and at 475g it’s extremely portable. The only drawback is you’ll need to use a DX-format or smaller Nikon as it won’t support a full-frame camera, but otherwise this is a great-value gizmo.