Hi,

my boss is very interested in purchasing a camera kit for
quicktime VR work.

One of the cool things he's seen was a guy who had a fish eye
lens on his still camera. From the nodel point he hanged a plumb bob.
This guy then had a mouse pad with a circle cut out of the center
and three lines that marked 0-120-240 degrees. He'd go into a place
and drop the mouse pad on the floor and have the plumb bob set the
nodel point in the middle of the circle. Take a pic at each mark
and voila, instant/simple VR of the room. Pretty cool.

Anyway, we want to get like a 4-6M pixel camera with a fish
eye lens that can do this kind of high quality work. The camera
this guy used is no longer made.

*Any suggestions* are most welcome.

If I remember correctly it's very important that the tripod mount
is directly centered correctly under CCD for it to work correctly
on a tripod.

Jacques, I would go to the Apple QT VR list archives and see what is the current hot cameras. I think Nikon may have several models that might work well.

Thanks guys!

Yes, for his "movable mouse pad rig" the guy had the plumb
bob hang directly below the CCD "plane".

I thought that the idea was to swing the lens about the front nodal point.

Best,
Helen

Yes, it is the front nodal point. Here is a page (http://developer.apple.com/documentation/QuickTime/InsideQT_QTVR/3Chap/chapter_4_section_4.html) from the Apple Developer Connection outlining what is needed to make QuickTime VR Panoramas.