Affordable motorized pan head?

[jnorman34]

Can someone suggest a decent affordable motorized pan head?  I have seen the polaroid one for about $100, but its reviews are not so glowing.  the bescor unit for $125 gets better reviews.  I am mainly doing pans of architectural subjects, so I want a fairly slow pan, so a unit that has adjustable pan speed would be good.  I have a nice manfrotto fluid head, but my hand-moved pans are not as smooth or consistent as I want.

 

also, do any of you use your fluid head on top of the motorized head, or does the motorized head take the place of the fluid head entirely?  thanks.

[jnorman34]

hmmm - I just watched some footage from the bescor unit, and it hardly seems any smoother than my hand pans.  perhaps I should go back to the old rubber band method...    are there any other good tricks to get smooth pans?

[Glenn Thomas]

The Bescor is great. I've had one for years. The last video I used it on was this - http://avene.org/zux-put-down-music-video/ I had 5 instances of the guy all shot using the Bescor set to auto pan. The speed did vary very slightly from take to take, but thankfully I was able to sync them up and mask them well enough.

[jnorman34]

Glenn - very nice work. Thanks.

[JohnBarlow]

The Bescor 101 is a generic unit sold under many brands. It can be wired to operate wirelessly using a flash/remote shuuter trigger over 30 meters away, or through walls - YongNuo type ;)