My Tabletop Rig

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stevekale
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Joined: Wed May 11, 2011 2:40 pm
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My Tabletop Rig

Post by stevekale »

I thought I would post a few pictures of my rig (unfortunately sans camera!) and say a big thank you to all those that helped me with the setup. I've had it setup since just before Christmas but I am only now getting the chance to play with it a little.

Here are some rather crude photos.

The first gives an overview of the whole thing - the profile plate has, obviously, been swung around to fit in the photo. The base board is 30mm granite kitchen top 30cm x 60cm. (Memo to self: check the gape of drill press before deciding on final dimensions.) I paid a little more to have the edges and sides polished. :D It sits on sorbothane bumpers. I drilled holes in the granite and epoxied (J B Weld) in threaded inserts. Big thanks to Richard Martel for his granite SBS http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... sc&start=0 This was surprisingly easy with the right drill bit, careful measurement and a drill press. 7 holes did not take long.

Chris S will recognise the 16" Hejnar Arca rail (mounted upside down) and double clamps! Then follows the "extended" Stackshot rail with its Arca clamp adaptor plate, a Really Right Stuff Arca clamp, and then the "normal" Stackshot rail for both fine and coarse fore/aft and left/right movement (I can never remember if that's XY or not). At the moment the camera is affixed via the tripod screw but I want to replace this with the proposed Cognisys Arca clamp that will allow both orientations.

Image

Subject stage. A lot of this owes to Marc' setup here http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... php?t=9243. PB/1 mounting post, P200/M 1.5" post, C1501/M mounting clamp, RLA150/M dovetail optical rail, RC2/M extended rail carrier, MT1/M 13mm translation stage (for micro vertical adjustment), MT402 right angle bracket, RP01/M rotation platform (mounted with double-sided tape). (No goniometers for the moment....) Needle UV glued into screw for subject mounting. Profile plate from my fly tying vice.

Image

Another view of the Stackshots.

Image

Stackshot controller and self-constructed switch box with on-off-on toggling between the rails from the one controller. Seems to work very well.

Image

Once again, a big thank you to all those who persevered with my questioning!

Regards

Steve
Last edited by stevekale on Mon Jan 30, 2012 9:38 am, edited 3 times in total.

Peter De Smidt
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Post by Peter De Smidt »

That's a great looking setup Steve!

elf
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Post by elf »

It's a very clean setup. The only thing that I would definitely change (on the camera side) is the attachment method for the upper Stackshot. Can you remove the elevated/cantilevered camera adaptor from the lower stackshot and mount the double Arca style clamp directly to the Stackshot? It doesn't look like you gain any extra movement with the elevated adaptor and you have the extra height and cantilever contributing to more vibration. You probably don't need more than an inch or two of movement in the Stackshot since you have the rough movement in the bottom Arca clamp.

Another consideration for the top Stackshot camera connection is that it isn't orientated to support the camera very well on the left (stepper motor) side. If my camera were mounted on it, I wouldn't be able to change the battery without removing the camera from the Stackshot. There also isn't a good way to support an extended lens setup in the current configuration. I'd recommend replacing the elevated camera mount on the top Stackshot with a Arca plate similar to the bottom one mounted at 90 degrees to the Stackshot rails. This would allow you to mount the camera so the battery was accessible as well as add support for long lens.

stevekale
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Post by stevekale »

Thanks for the comments guys.
elf wrote:If my camera were mounted on it, I wouldn't be able to change the battery without removing the camera from the Stackshot.
I can easily remove the battery on my 1Ds II without removing the camera. It slides out the left side.
elf wrote: I'd recommend replacing the elevated camera mount on the top Stackshot with a Arca plate similar to the bottom one mounted at 90 degrees to the Stackshot rails.
This is what I mentioned in my first post. The current Arca plate from Cognisys only allows orientation in line with the rail, rather than perpendicular with the rail. They are soon (apparently) to introduce an Arcar style plate that allows orientation both inline and perpendicular to the rail. So the bit you are talking will be replaced when this is available.

What I had thought I would be able to do is to mount the base of the second Stackshot directly to the Arca plate adaptor of the first (i.e. without the need for the RRS clamp). As you note, I don't need to be able to slide the second rail within the clamp. It would also reduce the height of everything. Annoyingly, however, the hole configurations don't match up and it could only be secured with one screw and not 2 or 3. (I have raised this with Cognisys.)

AndrewC
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Post by AndrewC »

I'm missing something somewhere :( Why are you going to the expense/bother of using a Stackshot rail for your left:right adjustment ?
rgds, Andrew

"Is that an accurate dictionary ? Charlie Eppes

naturephoto1
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Post by naturephoto1 »

AndrewC wrote:I'm missing something somewhere :( Why are you going to the expense/bother of using a Stackshot rail for your left:right adjustment ?
Andrew,

That was my thought as well. I did a double take on that. I am sure that we can all come up with a much more economical way of doing this.

I will wait for Steve's comments before I make any suggestions.

Rich
Last edited by naturephoto1 on Tue Jan 31, 2012 8:00 am, edited 1 time in total.

ChrisRaper
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Post by ChrisRaper »

Looks a great setup but, for the cost, I really hope it works well for you! :D

stevekale
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Post by stevekale »

AndrewC wrote:I'm missing something somewhere :( Why are you going to the expense/bother of using a Stackshot rail for your left:right adjustment ?
Actually it was quite cost effective, given I already had the extended Stackshot rail and controller. I only needed the short rail without a controller etc. I also didn't need to worry about a coarse L/R solution for the camera and a fine L/R solution for the subject stage. (The only subject movement I have is vertical - coarse and fine.)

The subject stage was where most of the additional expense was (particularly the 13mm translation stage) and then only largely because I was too impatient to collect parts used. It's also very difficult to find these parts in the UK so one order delivered to the parents-in-law's house was efficient. (Don't buy from Thorlabs via the UK - dramatically cheaper to collect in the US.)

The bit I hadn't anticipated at the start was the 16" rail ($99) and double clamps ($238 for 2) from Chris Hejnar. But that was a subject of long discussion between Chris S and me. I'm sure the flexibility will be worth it.

AndrewC
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Post by AndrewC »

stevekale wrote:... It's also very difficult to find these parts in the UK so one order delivered to the parents-in-law's house was efficient. (Don't buy from Thorlabs via the UK - dramatically cheaper to collect in the US.)
...
As I've suggested many times - go look in Asia. On eBay just tick the "worldwide" box under location.

Don't get us/me wrong - just wondering why you made the choices you did. Experience tends to suggest you need:

1) A lot of Z adjustment (along the subject-lens axis) to take account of different lenses / bellows / etc
2) A coarse height if you dramatically change your mount datum (eg go from a bellows (1-10x) to say an objective on an uncollared extension (>10x) or just a simple macro lens (<1x)
3) A fine height and side to side for positioning
4) Then your fine stacking movement.

After that a rotation stage becomes a blessing, and then finally goniometers.

Your side to side stage seems to add a lot of left:right adjustment which might not be that useful - hence the questions :)
rgds, Andrew

"Is that an accurate dictionary ? Charlie Eppes

ChrisLilley
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Post by ChrisLilley »

AndrewC wrote: Your side to side stage seems to add a lot of left:right adjustment which might not be that useful - hence the questions :)
I assumed this was to produce true (rather than synthetic) stereo pairs? Take one stack, move over a bit, repeat the stack (which the StackShot controller makes very easy).

Or for panoramas.

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

ChrisLilley wrote:
AndrewC wrote: Your side to side stage seems to add a lot of left:right adjustment which might not be that useful - hence the questions :)
I assumed this was to produce true (rather than synthetic) stereo pairs? Take one stack, move over a bit, repeat the stack (which the StackShot controller makes very easy).
As magnification increases, you'll find that just moving left/right works less and less well. The reason is that the shift needed to get a good angular separation becomes large compared to your frame width. Details depend on the particular lenses you're using, in particular the entrance pupil location which determines image perspective. The farther back the entrance pupil, the more lateral shift you need to get the same angular separation.

Typical way to shoot true stereo is to both move over and "toe in" to keep the subject centered. You can also rotate the subject, which works OK unless your subject and illumination happens to create stereo-unfriendly shadows. See HERE for some discussion/illustration of that issue.

--Rik

stevekale
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Post by stevekale »

Andrew

Your rig was one that admired as I pondered whether I could make my own. (To be frank, making the rig was a project in and of itself.) To your question, for very little more than the cost of buying a used 1/2in translation stage I picked up convenient and flexible micro L/R adjustment and coarse L/R. There wasn't much more to it than that. I was hasty buying the MT1/M new as I found out when my saved eBay searches started scoring hits, mostly out of the US, but c'est la vie. It won't kill me and is by no means expensive relative to some of my camera gear.

One thing I do want to add is a simple L-bracket such as that sitting on the very top of your rig. I could reconfigure my existing setup to do the same thing but the ability to add a simple bracket on top of the rotation platform would be much more convenient. What did you use or did you make yours yourself?



I've also noticed that the needle I am currently using is relatively fat (0.6mm). It looks huge at 6x. I suspect I need to find a finer needle.

I have some questions around the use of polarisers which I will put in another thread.

As to ideas on how to use the extra flexibility of this rig (such as the stereo discussion) I'm all open to suggestions. I do however need to start working through some basics.

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