Bellows suggestions?

[Chris S.]

. . . you can ask RafCamera to make you a replacement rear mount. He made those for the Minolta Auto Bellows III, so most likely he can make one for yours as well.

This is good advice. With a replacement rear mount, it will be as if the Nikon bellows were originally made for your Sony camera (and I imagine this is easily reversible). RafCamera does nice work at reasonable prices--lots of us here have benefited from his products/services.

A good-quality second-hand Nikon bellows will hold its value. One with the option to "natively" mount Sony would be something special, and likely easy to sell if you ever wanted to.

In your particular situation, you might want to choose your "taking" lenses first, and then get the supporting hardware that works for them, whether that is a bellows or converging lens.

This said, many of us use both finite and infinite optics, and so have both a bellows (or tubes) and a converging lens. Both are handy in a macro studio, and if you have both, you can try almost any lens that comes your way. One benefit of bellows/tube is that you can mount your current macro lens on them to get higher magnification than the built-in helicoid of the lens permits. (If your magnification exceeds 1:1, note that you'll likely get better results if you also reverse-mount the lens.)

If choosing between bellows and tubes for the studio, I'd go with a bellows every time. The ability to adjust the length so easily, and the solidity of the mount, are very convenient.

The look of Levon Biss' images has little to do with his optics, and much to do with his style of shooting/lighting. The signature element is that he masks together multiple images made with different lighting. One lighting regime may look good for a subject's wing, but not for its head. So he shoots both ways and combines the best of both approaches. It appears that sometimes he does this quite a number of times for a single subject. Biss also uses stack and stitch to create high resolution images that facilitate larger prints.

My personal preference is to use a standard macro lens mounted directly on camera for magnifications under 1x, a bellows with finite optics for magnifications of 1x to 4x, and infinite objectives for magnifications of 5x-100x. Another rational approach would be to substitute something like the Laowa 2.5-5x, mounted directly on camera, for the 2.5x-3x range. And of course there are many other rational approaches.

Cheers,

--Chris S.

[Adalbert]

Hello David,

I don’t want to buy cheap and have to replace the gear later on

If you don't want to buy cheap and double,
then buy the M Plan Apo from Mitutoyo straight away.
Especially if you want to achieve high magnifications.

BTW, You can put Mities on the tele 200mm and use focus-bracketing.

Best, ADi

[blades]

. . . you can ask RafCamera to make you a replacement rear mount. He made those for the Minolta Auto Bellows III, so most likely he can make one for yours as well.

This is good advice. With a replacement rear mount, it will be as if the Nikon bellows were originally made for your Sony camera (and I imagine this is easily reversible). RafCamera does nice work at reasonable prices--lots of us here have benefited from his products/services.

A good-quality second-hand Nikon bellows will hold its value. One with the option to "natively" mount Sony would be something special, and likely easy to sell if you ever wanted to.

In your particular situation, you might want to choose your "taking" lenses first, and then get the supporting hardware that works for them, whether that is a bellows or converging lens.

This said, many of us use both finite and infinite optics, and so have both a bellows (or tubes) and a converging lens. Both are handy in a macro studio, and if you have both, you can try almost any lens that comes your way. One benefit of bellows/tube is that you can mount your current macro lens on them to get higher magnification than the built-in helicoid of the lens permits. (If your magnification exceeds 1:1, note that you'll likely get better results if you also reverse-mount the lens.)

If choosing between bellows and tubes for the studio, I'd go with a bellows every time. The ability to adjust the length so easily, and the solidity of the mount, are very convenient.

The look of Levon Biss' images has little to do with his optics, and much to do with his style of shooting/lighting. The signature element is that he masks together multiple images made with different lighting. One lighting regime may look good for a subject's wing, but not for its head. So he shoots both ways and combines the best of both approaches. It appears that sometimes he does this quite a number of times for a single subject. Biss also uses stack and stitch to create high resolution images that facilitate larger prints.

My personal preference is to use a standard macro lens mounted directly on camera for magnifications under 1x, a bellows with finite optics for magnifications of 1x to 4x, and infinite objectives for magnifications of 5x-100x. Another rational approach would be to substitute something like the Laowa 2.5-5x, mounted directly on camera, for the 2.5x-3x range. And of course there are many other rational approaches.

Cheers,

--Chris S.

Thank you Chris, I’m very grateful for you’re effort to reply. I have studied Levens work and you explain it exactly. If nothing else beyond my normal macro photography with a macro lens, this more extreme close up is very interesting to me as I research it more.

[blades]

Hello David,

I don’t want to buy cheap and have to replace the gear later on

If you don't want to buy cheap and double,
then buy the M Plan Apo from Mitutoyo straight away.
Especially if you want to achieve high magnifications.

BTW, You can put Mities on the tele 200mm and use focus-bracketing.

Best, ADi

.
Thank you ADi. Yes, it’s a Mitutoyo I would like to buy. I’m thinking 10x currently to begin with. Bit I’m looking into this still

[Lou Jost]

"If choosing between bellows and tubes for the studio, I'd go with a bellows every time. The ability to adjust the length so easily, and the solidity of the mount, are very convenient."

I think screw-mount tubes + helicoid are more rigid than almost any bellows, and with proper mounting, they allow either front-standard or rear-standard focusing.

[blades]

"If choosing between bellows and tubes for the studio, I'd go with a bellows every time. The ability to adjust the length so easily, and the solidity of the mount, are very convenient."

I think screw-mount tubes + helicoid are more rigid than almost any bellows, and with proper mounting, they allow either front-standard or rear-standard focusing.

Thank you

[ray_parkhurst]

Coming in late here, but if you do go the bellows route, I tend to favor the Vivitar. It's minimum extension is several mm shorter than any others I've tried. Plus each standard has its own 1/4" mount, and the two are coplanar. My standard configuration is to install short Arca clamps to each standard. This gives complete rigidity while still allowing regular bellows operation. Unclamp both standards and the whole bellows slides easily along the Arca plate. Plus the Vivitar is T-mount so easy to adapt. And finally, I had Raf make 39mm and 40mm front adapters to further minimize the extension.

[ray_parkhurst]

"If choosing between bellows and tubes for the studio, I'd go with a bellows every time. The ability to adjust the length so easily, and the solidity of the mount, are very convenient."

I think screw-mount tubes + helicoid are more rigid than almost any bellows, and with proper mounting, they allow either front-standard or rear-standard focusing.

Lou...by "helicoid" I assume you're talking about threaded tubes of some kind, not for example the M42 helicoids available on eBay and Amazon, correct? Those are for sure quite rickety, much more so than a bellows. If you know of any reasonably rigid helicoids out there, please share a link as I'm always looking for better ones.

[Adalbert]

Hi Ray,
Such an eBay or Amazon helicoid does not float alone in the air,
but is attached to both sides.
The attachment can be bombproof, though, I know:-)
http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... 68#p229468
Best, ADi

[ray_parkhurst]

Hi Ray,
Such an eBay or Amazon helicoid does not float alone in the air,
but is attached to both sides.
The attachment can be bombproof, though, I know:-)
http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... 68#p229468
Best, ADi

Ahh, thanks for that link. In that case the helicoid is just used to set the extension, not as a supporting element.

[Lou Jost]

Ray and Adalbert, I do use helicoids as supporting elements. I find that even within a brand, there is a lot of variation in the stability of a helicoid. I like the Unifoc versions, and the larger-diameter 58mm and especially 65mm helicoids on eBay, and perhaps best of all, the old Vivitar macro teleconverter with its innards ripped out.

[ray_parkhurst]

Ray and Adalbert, I do use helicoids as supporting elements. I find that even within a brand, there is a lot of variation in the stability of a helicoid. I like the Unifoc versions, and the larger-diameter 58mm and especially 65mm helicoids on eBay, and perhaps best of all, the old Vivitar macro teleconverter with its innards ripped out.

I use them as well, but I have not found any, including some that you list, which are as rigid as a decent bellows, and that is what I was commenting on before. Clamped between standards it doesn't matter of course.

[ray_parkhurst]

If you are interested in the Vivitar option, here's a link showing a pic of a Vivitar bellows with Arca clamps on each standard:

viewtopic.php?f=30&t=44238

[Cunha]

Hi Blades,

This depends on what microscope objectives you already have.

1.) If you have finite corrected microscope lenses,
then the lens is connected directly to the camera.
In most cases, via a phototube with a length of 15 cm or bellows.


2.) However, if you have infinite corrected microscope lenses,
you have to connect a tube lens in between.

Very often the Raynox DCR-150 is used as a tube lens.

But other lenses with a focal length of about 200 mm can also be used.
If you use a tele-lens lens 200mm with AF as a tube-lens,
then you can use the focus bracketing and stack with the AF.

For example, I do this with the Canon EF 70-200 and a Mitu 5x.
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=17 ... 0269581589

Best, ADi

Hi Adlabert,
Thank you for the brief but important explanation.
I have a few questions, if you don't mind.

1.
Taking your words, does this mean that I can use a lens like the Fujifilm Fujinon GF 5.6/100-200mm (79-158mm in full-frame equivalent) as a tube lens for Infinity corrected microscope objectives? Or would the GF 4/250mm (198mm in full-frame equivalent) be more appropriate?
Of course I'm not going to buy this lens just for this use. There would be cheaper solutions for just this specific use. But since I have them, can they be used as a tube lens?

Here is a formula to calculate the use of microscope objectives with tube lenses, which I hope is reliable:
http://klarscientific.com/microscopy-ba ... ube%20lens.

Then the next phase will be to choose the microscope objectives to combine with the tube lens, for the desired magnifications.

2.
How big will the image be that microscope objectives project when used under the microscope (how to calculate; how to know)?

3.
What role does the tube lens play in this?

4.
Will a set of these (lens + GF tele lens) cover the GFX sensor?

5.
Between this solution and the use of a bellows, which one will be more versatile?
The bellows, because it will be suitable for other types of lenses (for example: enlarger lenses, bellows lenses, macro, etc.) and also microscope objectives!?
(a bellows suitable for this medium format GFX)

6.
Additional question; with this configuration of GFX+GF lens (as tube lens)+microscope objective, can I still use the Focus BKT feature of the GFX100s?

Thank you in advance for your help.

[FotoChris]

1. Objective on a lens via a screw on adapter
2. Set of bellows and an objective
3. A tube like the Raynox with an objective on the end

4. get a Laowa macro 60/90/100mm lens what goes from infinity to 2:1 or their 2,5-5x macro lens.

4. get a Laowa macro 60/90/100mm lens what goes from infinity to 2:1 and their 2,5-5x macro lens.