A simple setup

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colohank
Posts: 113
Joined: Sat Jul 24, 2021 6:07 pm
Location: Fruita, Colorado, USA

A simple setup

Post by colohank »

Ours is a modest home, with no gift-wrapping room, media room, wine cellar, or exercise room. We don't even have a separate family room. Thus, there's no available space that I can dedicate solely to a permanent macrophotography setup. In addition, the house is built over a crawlspace, so the floor is subject to vibration from a variety of sources.

When I'm shooting focus-stacks, this home-built equipment platform sits on a mobile workbench in my garage. Because the garage has a concrete floor, vibration isn't a major concern. And because the garage has no windows, having to deal with extraneous light isn't an issue either. When I don't need it, I can store the platform against a wall beneath some shelving, freeing up the bench for other uses.

I fabricated the platform from 3/4-inch medium density fiberboard (MDF), a heavy, stiff, flat, dimensionally stable material that's available at any home center. The platform is canted upward on each side at a 30-degree angle to accommodate clamp-on accessories and to stiffen the structure. What sets this platform apart from earlier iterations is its torsion-box construction. A torsion box, like an airplane wing, consists of an internal framework sandwiched between two external skins and bonded to them -- in this instance, the 3/4-inch MDF panel on top and a 1/4-inch MDF panel (a piece of scrap with cherry veneer) on the bottom. Without adding a lot of extra weight, the torsion box stiffens the platform and damps vibrations.

I also employed torsion-box construction for the deck and the vertical dividers between drawer banks when I built the workbench more than twenty years ago. Though the carcass of the bench is relatively light, it's extremely strong and rigid. The working weight of the bench derives from its solid maple top and the contents of its drawers.

At 27" X 23", the platform is small enough to fit inside my collapsible home-built light tent and large enough to accommodate a home-built 'light shed" I use when the situation calls for reflected rather than direct or diffused illumination. A rigid, fixed Arca-Swiss mounting rail is screwed into one end of the platform, and a tilting camera mount on the other.

And no, that's not where I position the bench when shooting focus-stacks. I just wanted a somewhat featureless background for these shots.
Attachments
The basic setup.
The basic setup.
Detail of the torsion box's internal frame.
Detail of the torsion box's internal frame.
The torsion box glued in place on the bottom of the platform.  The cutouts afford access to mounting screws.  Rubber bumpers added later for feet.
The torsion box glued in place on the bottom of the platform. The cutouts afford access to mounting screws. Rubber bumpers added later for feet.
The light shed is made of 1/4-inch MDF with a white melamine interior.
The light shed is made of 1/4-inch MDF with a white melamine interior.

wwheeler48
Posts: 83
Joined: Sun Feb 21, 2021 5:50 pm
Location: Seattle, WA, USA

Re: A simple setup

Post by wwheeler48 »

Very nice and efficient. Well done.

joshmacro
Posts: 82
Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2020 5:25 pm
Location: New York

Re: A simple setup

Post by joshmacro »

Very elegant and attractive solution. Nice job! Similarly, living in an apartment I need a rig that I could store in a closet when not in use. Over the years I have tried several options. I first tried a wooden rig (your woodworking skills are far superior to mine!) but I ended up always needing to add to it, drill holes, build supports, etc. Didn't have the skills or the tools. Then I migrated to an aluminum extrusion rig. More modular, but aluminum extrusion is definitely not for frequent assembling and disassembling. Didn't have the patience. Now I have a rig with only two major components: a 12 x 24 optical breadboard and a Thorlabs XT66 rail. These can be put together very quickly and easily fit into a closet when disassembled. All other components of my rig are smaller arca plates/rails, positioners, stages, screws, etc. which fit nicely into a box that also goes into my closet.

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