ITCOW 360 [L]

Agnos Engineering sent me many samples for a great demo with the guys and for a review.

Introduction

The products are very well made and you can see that a lot of thought have been done on the drawing board before they are fabricated. The final product are proudly stamped with “Made in EU”.

The kind folks at Agnos sent me the following:

1 Kit MrotatorTCP
1 Kit RingT1022C
1 red collar ring for Sigma 8mm
1 Kit Footplate for t1022C/trip
1 Kit Footplate for t1022C/TCP
1 Kit RingT105N
1 Kit Footplate for t105N/trip
1 Kit Footplate for t105N/TCP
1 Kit THREE38
I won’t be going into details what which does as with all our previous reviews and articles, we’ll concentrate the built, price and what gets the job done and of course on the pictures of these pano hardware porn!As mentioned, the built of each and every single product is great with good solid materials and hole where you will need them, screws all provided and even tools (allen keys of varying sizes) you need to get them tighten or changed.

Let’s start off with the Rotator T. When we first handled this, it does not feel light. It is solid built and is meant to replace any tripod you may have. I replace it on my Benro trvel angle from the Benro KS-0.

The Rotator T is made of steel and aluminium with very nice black anodised finishing on it’s surface.

What’s unique about this head is, the indents are built in. Meaning you just choose how many degrees per shot you need, slot in the knob into the respective slot and rotate!

The default I received was sloted into “3 x 120 degrees, 6 x 60 degrees or 12 x 30 degrees”, meaning, it will rotate and stop at every 30 degrees. Exactly what I need for my Canon EOS40D with a 10-2mm setup.

Thus setting it to the 2 x 180 degrees, 4 x 90 degrees, 8 x 45 degrees slot will make an indent stop every 45 degrees.

The bad? It’s recommended you fit the Rotator T onto a “leveller” so you can adjust it to be level/ parallel to the ground.

The Rotator T seems like an equipment that is meant to replace all your existing tripod geaers making you change your setup (if you are looking for such setups) into a permanently pano one.

The Rotator T has also, a somewhat properitary mounting holes as you can see below. This allow seamless securing of all Agno’s pano equipment, from the RingT to the provided plates.

Next, we take a look at the RingT

This baby is a god send. The smallest and lightest equipment you can find and use that can get your nodal point. It’s light weight but don’t think it is flimsy. Rest assured your lens will fit happily in it and knowing it will not damage neither the lens nor the RingT.

Above, the Ring T for 10-22mm package.

I love the red innards which are plastic. It will give the lens a good protection yet grip it well.

The top knob allows for quick release and tightening while the built in bubble levels are great to have. Why 2 bubble levels 90 degrees to each other? It’s there to allow you to mount the RingT onto a Mrotator TCP then onto the RotatorT!

Base is Kit Footplate for RingT (model T1022C/TCP)

We’ll cover the Mrotator TCP later, we’ll be taking a pano with the RingT and RotatorT, this will allow a successful 360 pano with no zenith and no nadir.

Remove the 3 screws from the top of the RotatorT.

Add the RingT onto the RotatorT

Set the RotatorT to ZERO degrees and mount the RingT, lens will face away from the zero degrees marker.

I”ll be taking my panos at strictly 10mm all the time thus locking it at 10mm with the white line of the focusing ring as a guide.

The final setup is simple and superbly light. This will allow taking of 360 panos with no problem at all. I’ve set my usual cam, the Canon EOS 40D with a grip, the Canon BGE2, it mounted with no problem.

Mechnical Three38 Adaptor

Some thoughts, if the three38 mechanical adaptor is to have a female mounting hole of the standard 3/8″ for cameras, we’ll be able to use the RingT + the Three38 on any ball head. Bad point is there’ll be no click stops as compared to be using this in conjunction with the Rotator T. This setup however will allow you to keep your existing ball heads that may already have angle readings like the Benro KJ-1.

MrotatorT

Lastly, we look at the MrotatorT TCP. This is one heavy equipment and it’s built for a reason. It allow full size cameras to be mounted with no problem. To illustrate this, I attached a grip to my 40D.

The setup is firm and the camera can be removed quickly with the supplied Manfrotto quick release plate. Even with it in use plus the grip on the 40D, it still has allowance for bigger cameras. This will allow anything from the D2x to the 1D/1Ds MK series cameras to be mounted with no problem.

As a reference, the 40D with grip to the center of the 10-22mm wide angle lens is roughly 11.2cm

More pictures of the mRotator T. The vertical arm has an indentation of 15 degrees. It really saves time for the click stops.

Prices Summary

The following prices are as of time of writing and are individual prices. Agnos provides package prices for great savings, check their site for more on package prices.

Rotator T -160 Euros/ SGD$340

RingT (10-22mm) – 180 Euros/ SGD$382

Three38 Mechnical Adaptor – 30 Euros/ SGD$63

Mrotator TCP -170Euros/ SGD$361

Nodal Ninja 3 compared

The Agnos should be compared to the upcoming Nodal Ninja 5 for quality, material and price but I’ve included some pictures for comparision and considerations.

Pano Shots

All shots from the Changi Airport Terminal 3 are taken with Agnos mRotator + Rotator T setup.

The following is a test pano taken with the RingT setup. Click image to launch, a new window will open.

Summary

Agno’s Engineering produce one of the best pano heads and accessories around money can buy. Their RingT is a unique way of mounting the camera, or rather, the lens on it’s nodal point allow rotation around the nodal point.

The bad, interchangeability. You will need multiple and seprately sold RingT for all your lens. Generally, we do not change lens often for taking pano so that could be avoided.

The light weight of the RingT will allow full production of 360 panos with no problem and for users who will not change their current fisheye or wide angle lens, the RingT is perfect!

The Rotator T’s built in indent selector is a god sent. Release the knob, plug it into any indent stops you want and it just works. It’s a really time saving design. The bad, levelling and forcing it’s owner to replace their existing tripod heads with this. Levelling can still be done by differing the length(s) of the tripod’s legs to level the bubble but of course, using a ball head will be a lot faster.

Comparing the MrotatorT to the Nodal Ninja 3 may not be fair as mentioned as the Mrotator sllows full sized cameras to be mount securely and safely. Taking of 360 x 360 panos with your full size cameras is absoutely possible with the MrotatorT . Couple it with the rotatorT, it’s a perfect setup for fast and perfect panoramas.

It will be fair to compare the mRotatorT with RotatorT with 360 Precision’s offering, namely the Absolute and the Adjuste. Prices wise, Agno’s offerings beat them hands down at around SGD$1.6k and SGD$1.8k respectively. Till we get our hands on the Nodal Ninja 5 for reviews, Agnos is the one to get for full body cameras!

Links

Agno’s Engineering – http://www.agnos.com
360 Precision – http://www.360precision.com
Nodal Ninja – http://www.nodalninja.com/