Gallery of macro photography rigs

[4odonates]

Is there a gallery of photos that show a variety of studio macro photography rigs?

I'm looking for a base for my macro photography rigs, including the NiSi NM-200 manual focusing rail, several macro lenses, and one 4x microscope objective. The base will be placed on a sturdy tabletop. Ideally I’d like to find a viable commercial product since I live in a tiny apartment and don’t have a workshop.

Allan Walls mentioned an aluminum base that Rik Littlefield uses. I’d love to see photos of that rig.

Thanks for your help!
Walter

[rjlittlefield]

Start at FAQ: Example macro rigs, and follow the links therein.

A somewhat earlier version of my rig can be seen at viewtopic.php?p=256346#p256346 . Since then I have swapped out the Olympus focus block for a Nikon block that is "lower". And usually I use a heavily modified Olympus bellows as shown at viewtopic.php?p=266431#p266431 .

--Rik

[colohank]

Because I have no space set that I can dedicate solely for macrophotography, my basic setup is simple but versatile and portable. It's a home-built platform made out of 3/4-inch medium density fiberboard (MDF), which is available in a variety of sizes at most home centers. I have a lot of woodworking machines and experience, but for those who have neither, the folks at the home center are often willing to cut such material to size. My platform measures 27 inches deep by 23 inches wide, including the sides, which I canted upward at a 30-degree angle to add a bit of stiffness and accommodate clamping light fixtures. If need be, I can slide the platform into my home-built light tent. I also layered a torsion box on the bottom of the platform to provide additional rigidity, but MDF is quite dense and rigid in its own right, so a single slab would probably suffice. A fixed rail with Arca-Swiss compatible clamps is bolted to one end of the sled for mounting focus rails and the like. A tilting clamp at the other end provides a bit of additional versatility. The vertical column, which serves as a primitive copy stand and as a camera support for my axial lighting setup, is just a 24-inch length of 1-inch ID threaded iron pipe set in a cast-iron pipe flange. Both pipe and flange are off-the-shelf items at most home centers. The platform rests on four rubber feet.

My macro "studio," for lack of a better term, is located in my cluttered garage, where it shares space with a bunch of woodworking machines, a car, a bicycle, a canoe, and all manner of other stuff. The concrete floor minimizes the risk of vibration, and the space is windowless, so I can easily control lighting.