Sunday, October 26, 2025

New generic mechanical panorama tripod mount

The following panorama image was taken using the "Camera" app on my Apple iPad mini 6, set for "Pano" mode. Sometimes I like to use a panorama image to set the stage for a panoramic time lapse video.

23 October 2025. Facing north. (5828 x 3816 pixels)

I bought a new gadget for creating panoramic time lapse videos. The vendor calls it "Action Camera 360° Rotating 60min Time Lapse Timer Tripod Head Adapter For Gopro"; I call it the "generic mechanical panorama tripod mount" because there is no name anywhere on the device itself or the box in which it was shipped. Who designed and manufactured the gadget? I have no idea, although there are many similar looking devices that can be found on the Internet.

The following brief panoramic time lapse video is my first field test of the new device. As you can see, it worked but did it work as well as expected? You be the judge. I see at least one time during the video when it appears the device didn't rotate smoothly, and some of my friends said they can see the camera "wobble" slightly near the end of the clip. More about that in the section entitled "The Backstory."

23 October 2025. Facing north. (17 s)

I shot another longer panoramic time lapse video with the camera in a fixed position. My camera was still mounted on the generic device, but I didn't set the timer.

23 October 2025. Facing north. (23 s)

Both video clips were taken with my GoPro HERO4 Black action camera set for "Video" mode / "Time Lapse Video" submode, using a resolution of 4K and an interval of two (2) seconds. Both videos show cumuliform clouds in the sky.

The Backstory

My order was shipped in a plastic mailer. The item was packaged inside a thin, plain white cardboard box with no printing on the outside of the box. There was no product information inside the box.

Shipping from eBay took FOREVER! Tracking showed my order was stuck in the same facility for nearly a week. The last update was several days before the parcel was delivered. At some point the parcel was handed over to "GOFO EXPRESS" -- a company I've never heard of -- despite the fact that tracking had shown delivery via the United States Postal Service.

The panorama mount was bundled with a basic mount for GoPro action cameras; one of three plastic flanges on the mount was broken. Was the GoPro mount defective or was it broken during shipping? Who knows?

And the top of the panorama mount (the part that rotates) wobbles slightly. Is the wobble caused by a design flaw, or was the mount damaged during shipping? Again, who knows? But I know for certain both items were packed with insufficient protection from damage to the products in the box.

By now you might be wondering why I bought the product. The answer is simple: tripod mounts. The gadget features tripod mounts on the bottom (female) and top (male) that make it easy to mount the device on a tripod and mount a camera on the device ... securely. But those positive features of the product are outweighed heavily by all of its negatives.

My bottom line recommendation: DO NOT BUY this product!

Tech Tips

Whenever possible, I like to use free applications like the Apple iOS "Camera" app and Apple "iMovie" to create relatively high quality content.

iMovie is easy to use and works well, but it cannot be used to straighten video clips. I know, hard to believe. I discovered it is possible to import .MP4 video clips into Apple "Photos" where they can be edited and straightened. The edited clips are saved as .mov files, but hey, no problem -- both file types are essentially the same format and .mov files can be imported into iMovie.

All of the media featured in this blog post was edited and straightened using Apple "Photos."

Related Resources

Copyright © 2025 by Walter Sanford. All rights reserved.

Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Comments are invited and wlecome.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)