DSLR automated HDRI panoramic head project [first Arduino project]

INTP:
If you have the facilities to laser cut aluminum, I would make a mount for the camera that includes support along the rotation axes. That way the motors you use can be smaller and only be in charge of pushing the camera instead of doing any real weight support. Like imagine a chicken on a spit or the Price is Right wheel, the weight is supported, and doesn't take much to rotate.
I'd stick with stepper motors, counting steps will work just fine if you're halfway decent with math.
Servos have limited range, and the continuous ones are harder to work with as you're writing speed and direction to them.
This project will have plenty of room for simple limit switches which will work just dandy wit stepper motors.

Robin2:
If the camera mounting is counterbalanced you should not need much torque to move it in either direction.

If servos give you sufficient control they will be very much simpler to install, to power and to program than a stepper motor. I suggest you build a rough system and try it with servos before concluding that stepper motors are needed.

Note, however that normal servos only move through about 180 degrees. If you need a full 360 deg movement you will probably need a sail-winch servo or, perhaps, gearing to convert 180 deg into 360 deg. The HobbyKing website has a huge selection of servos if you want to study what is available.

...R
Stepper Motor Basics

It's not going to work in this case becouse to get good perspective on images I need to make panohead to rotate on a specific rotation centre in the lense itself (it's for parallaxing issue, don't worry on this one, just trust me when I say it must be done this way) so the only way to ballance it is to add weight - this means even more torque.

I would like to go with stepper motors aswell, I don't need exact tracking of movements becouse every positional image will overlap about 1/3 or even 1/2 on another image so there is plenty space for error and missing steps.
And yes, I can handle math :slight_smile:

I have some couple pretty powerful stepper motor laying around, they will be enough to start concepting, can someone recommend Arduino model I should purchase?