Panoramic head options

For multi-row 360°x180° panos you really need a specially designed head. In general though, the need to compensate for the entrance pupil of the lens depends on how critical you are and how close the subject of the pano is going to be.

For broad single row landscapes with most everything out towards infinity, you can get away with hand held shots sometimes. If you're shooting an interior of a 10ft x 10ft room not so much. I've heard others say there is no need for a special rig and tried some tests of a single row pano in 10x10 room both handheld and on a tripod without entrance pupil compensation. My usual software is PTGui Pro, but also tried Microsoft's free ICE software as I was told it can do miracles. I didn't find the results acceptable as it was full of stitching errors and didn't look seamless. The bottom line is that if I want confidence the shot will come out right, I bring a spherical rig and shoot it carefully.

With regard to rigs, I've also pieced together components from Hejnar Photo for rails/nodal slides and some clamps, Sunwayfoto for a panning clamp and Nodal Ninja for their simple fixed indexed rotator. I had everything nicely set when I was using m43 gear to shoot, but have had to make some modifications (slightly longer vertical rail and nodal slide) to fit the X-T2. The nice thing about Hejnar is they offer lots of choices in 1 inch increments. Sourcing the Sunwayfoto panning clamps is difficult in the USA due to patent disagreements with RRS. Some models can still be found here, but you can always mail order the full range from China. For rail indexed stop bars I've used ones from Hejnar, RRS, Sunwayfoto and Desmond. I've found the Sunwayfoto has very poor compatibility, and doesn't even fit some Sunwayfoto gear. The ones from Desmond are inexpensive and seem to fit everything I've tried. The Hejnar bars are nice, but screw from the back rather than the side creating some issues at times when attaching to the backside of a rail.