New Focus Stacking Setup

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Enoplometopus
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Joined: Wed Mar 31, 2010 1:48 pm
Location: Germany
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Re: New Focus Stacking Setup

Post by Enoplometopus »

I have recently added two LED lamps to the setup that enables me to produce quite acceptable picture quality while before I just worked with several flash units. With the former setups I never was successful in producing really sharp LED images. It always was kind of unsharp, especially when magnified on the screen. With this setup I use two Godox SL60 W LED units attached to the ceiling, and for many objects it works fine, at least with moderate magnification, like up to 5x, sometimes even 10x. My first successful LED pic is attached here, the compound eye of Tabanus sudeticus (heavily cropped and no sharpening). I did not expect this.
Attachments
2022-06-18 17-22-32 (C,Smoothing4).jpg
Best regards,

Daniel Knop/Enoplometopus
My website:www.knop.de
Instagram: danielknop10

Macro_Cosmos
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Re: New Focus Stacking Setup

Post by Macro_Cosmos »

Enoplometopus wrote:
Sun Jan 15, 2023 9:24 am
@ Macro_Cosmos, regarding the bellows. Sorry, I have missed some replies in this thread. Yes, I would certainly choose it again. The main advantage I see is that front and back have a round plate that can easily be detached with two screws on the side. One plate carries the camera, the other one carries the objective. I have several plates carrying different objectives, so I do not need to unscrew the objectives but just change the whole plate.
Thanks for the positive tip. It seems like a solution that ticks several boxes on my "must have" list, well, except for the price but that can be bumped down...
Anyway, their website seems like a mess and I am still trying to wrap my head around the system. The confusing website does not help but the PDF linked was pretty clear.
https://robertthompsonphotography.aiblo ... SYSTEM.pdf

So it appears that aside from the bellows, I need up to 4 (!!!) additional components to make this work.

Camera side:
Plate for adaptor
Adaptor for camera mount (Nikon F or Z and C-mount in my case, I will likely go for both)

Lens side:
Plate for adaptor
Adaptor for lens (potentially)

A rail for coarse focusing seems recommended, I can make one.

This becomes very expensive very quickly, and I simply cannot find the adaptors I want/need. The only relevant plate I can find is a 58mm threaded one, which a 58>F/Z/C and a 58>whatever can be used.
I wonder if they are willing to send me the .step file for the adaptors, I need SM2, SM3, and some common microscope objective threads. I can simply design my own.

Edit: The German language site is far better than the Australian one. The mounting on the camera side seems very elaborate.
- APRO EN is the mount for the detector side, a suitable (2nd) adaptor ring goes into this mount
- PROLEI is the mount on the lens side, a suitable (2nd) adaptor ring mounts to this
Yeah, that is 4 rings, with Novoflex prices, it is nearly the cost of the bellows. I will try asking them for a CAD file, or purchase the cheapest mounting ring to draw and then CNC my own for SM2/SM3 stuff.

ray_parkhurst
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Location: Santa Clara, CA, USA
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Re: New Focus Stacking Setup

Post by ray_parkhurst »

Enoplometopus wrote:
Sun Jan 15, 2023 9:24 am
@ Macro_Cosmos, regarding the bellows. Sorry, I have missed some replies in this thread. Yes, I would certainly choose it again. The main advantage I see is that front and back have a round plate that can easily be detached with two screws on the side. One plate carries the camera, the other one carries the objective. I have several plates carrying different objectives, so I do not need to unscrew the objectives but just change the whole plate.
This is one reason I favor the Vivitar bellows. The DT48 objective adapter comes off by loosening one thumbscrew. No unscrewing of objectives, but you do need to get adapters. I had Raf make M39 and M40 adapters for me. These also help to reduce the minimum extension so lower magnification is achievable with shorter lenses. Plus, the Vivitar is very inexpensive on used market.

Lou Jost
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Joined: Fri Sep 04, 2015 7:03 am
Location: Ecuador
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Re: New Focus Stacking Setup

Post by Lou Jost »

Regarding stitching, I'd recommend you don't use a nodal rotating stage. This is very lens-dependent and hard to get exactly right, and you'd have to fiddle with it every time you changed lenses. Better would be to use telecentric objectives (like the Nikon MM objectives) and move the camera in the x-y plane.

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