Raynox DCR-150 tube assembly with flocking

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mawyatt
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Post by mawyatt »

dickb wrote:
mawyatt wrote: You can't use the Nikon BR2A with the MJKZZ tubes, these tubes have an unknown to me threads (I've asked if anyone knows, but no one answered). They are about 57mm diameter, and seem to be some non-standard thread that only these eBay type tubes use. The tubes are OK, it's the F mount adapters that are the issue.

Agree it would be nice to find a ring adapter for these tubes so we could utilize quality F adapters.
The ebay tubes I own come in 2 diameter s, 60mm for the Canon EF sets and 57mm for Sony E and Minolta MD. The speed seems to be 0.75. So the Nikon ones appear to be the same as the Sony ones. I use cheap M60-M58 and M57-M55 step down rings respectively to connect these tubes to other components. For this purpose maybe an M57-M55 plus M55-M42 step down ring would be a good solution. Or M57-M52 plus Nikon BR2A.
Dick,

Yes the Sony seems like it's the same size as the Nikon F mount tubes. I'm going to order some M57 adapters. This is really good news if these fit and the threads match, then we can forgo the sloppy F mounts and use a quality F mount like the BR2A with a M57 ring adapter.

Today is starting out on a good note :D

Thanks so much for responding,

Best,
Research is like a treasure hunt, you don't know where to look or what you'll find!
~Mike

dhmiller
Posts: 256
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Post by dhmiller »

Thanks, Mike. The THK products look very high quality, but what do you use to motorize your stacks?
mawyatt wrote:Dennis,

I don't use the Stackshot anymore, as I've moved to the THK rail types. This doesn't interfere with the THK rails as I have them setup with medium ARCA clamps. This allows you could mount the long ARCA plate to the THK ARCA clamp or the short ARCA plate to the The ARCA clamp. I prefer the long ARCA plate as this is more directly mounted to the lens with better weight distribution.

With the WeMacro tubes this isn't an issue since the short ARCA plate isn't necessary because the F mount adapter fits properly.

You can't use the Nikon BR2A with the MJKZZ tubes, these tubes have an unknown to me threads (I've asked if anyone knows, but no one answered). They are about 57mm diameter, and seem to be some non-standard thread that only these eBay type tubes use. The tubes are OK, it's the F mount adapters that are the issue.

Agree it would be nice to find a ring adapter for these tubes so we could utilize quality F adapters.

Best,

dhmiller
Posts: 256
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 7:42 am
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Post by dhmiller »

Thanks, dickb. It would be great if I could use the Nikon to connect to the camera - that would get the system off to a good start. I'll look into a 57-52 and give that a try.
dickb wrote:
mawyatt wrote: You can't use the Nikon BR2A with the MJKZZ tubes, these tubes have an unknown to me threads (I've asked if anyone knows, but no one answered). They are about 57mm diameter, and seem to be some non-standard thread that only these eBay type tubes use. The tubes are OK, it's the F mount adapters that are the issue.

Agree it would be nice to find a ring adapter for these tubes so we could utilize quality F adapters.
The ebay tubes I own come in 2 diameter s, 60mm for the Canon EF sets and 57mm for Sony E and Minolta MD. The speed seems to be 0.75. So the Nikon ones appear to be the same as the Sony ones. I use cheap M60-M58 and M57-M55 step down rings respectively to connect these tubes to other components. For this purpose maybe an M57-M55 plus M55-M42 step down ring would be a good solution. Or M57-M52 plus Nikon BR2A.

mawyatt
Posts: 2497
Joined: Thu Aug 22, 2013 6:54 pm
Location: Clearwater, Florida

Post by mawyatt »

dhmiller wrote:Thanks, Mike. The THK products look very high quality, but what do you use to motorize your stacks?
mawyatt wrote:Dennis,

I don't use the Stackshot anymore, as I've moved to the THK rail types. This doesn't interfere with the THK rails as I have them setup with medium ARCA clamps. This allows you could mount the long ARCA plate to the THK ARCA clamp or the short ARCA plate to the The ARCA clamp. I prefer the long ARCA plate as this is more directly mounted to the lens with better weight distribution.

With the WeMacro tubes this isn't an issue since the short ARCA plate isn't necessary because the F mount adapter fits properly.

You can't use the Nikon BR2A with the MJKZZ tubes, these tubes have an unknown to me threads (I've asked if anyone knows, but no one answered). They are about 57mm diameter, and seem to be some non-standard thread that only these eBay type tubes use. The tubes are OK, it's the F mount adapters that are the issue.

Agree it would be nice to find a ring adapter for these tubes so we could utilize quality F adapters.

Best,
You add a stepper motor, a NEMA 11 for the KR15, and NEMA 17 for the KR20 and 26. The NEMA 11 are 200 step while the NEMA 17 are 400 step. The KR15, and 20s have 1mm pitch, and the KR26 has a 2mm pitch, these are what I have and use.

You can operate any of these with the Stackshot Controller, or WeMacro, or MJKZZ controllers with the proper mating connectors. I've done this and know they all work.

Later I needed to go with a stack and stitch system, and purchased the somewhat expensive MJKZZ system which doesn't work with Mac OS (my fault for not confirming future Mac support :oops: ). So I had some excess motors, rails and extrusions & hardware on hand (why I have some MJKZZ rails). I starting looking into seeing if could adapt to what I had and quickly realized I needed either to get a PC or develop and completely new system, chose the later. Glad I did because this eventually lead to the development of the Trinamic based stepper controllers and operate at a different performance level which I've posted much information on.

The effort evolved to single, dual, triple and quad axis controllers all working from a Raspberry Pi and work with various rails and stepper motors, including the Stackshot, Wemacro and MJKZZ since the controllers are completely configurable & programmable . Now these controllers can support the nanometer level Piezoelectric Stages (with Piezo Stage Controller) with the Trinamic controllers, all from a single Raspberry Pi. So one could have a 3 axis Stack and Stitch system with coarse & fine Z axis if needed, the fine being from the Piezo Stage and coarse form a conventional stepper based rail.

Anyway, the THK are very high quality rails, some of the best available I believe. Many use them with their systems on many different platforms.

If you watch eBay sometimes the KR20, KR26 or smaller KR20 can be found for reasonable cost. These are easily adapted for macro use, and outperform the standard macro rails.

Best,
Research is like a treasure hunt, you don't know where to look or what you'll find!
~Mike

dhmiller
Posts: 256
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 7:42 am
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Post by dhmiller »

Thanks, Mike. Wish I had some of those engineering skills ;-) but my graduate degree in music composition didn't get me too far into that world ;-) (my son in law is a mechanical engineer, but with two kids under 5 and one on the way, he doesn't have much time. He builds control systems for the navy's newest class of destroyers and controls everything remotely...).

I've got a lot of practice to do with the Stackshot and MJKZZ system, and still need such basics as a precision specimen holder (trying to get thorough info from William, but he's tied up at the moment.).

Maybe some day ;-)
mawyatt wrote:
dhmiller wrote:Thanks, Mike. The THK products look very high quality, but what do you use to motorize your stacks?
mawyatt wrote:Dennis,

I don't use the Stackshot anymore, as I've moved to the THK rail types. This doesn't interfere with the THK rails as I have them setup with medium ARCA clamps. This allows you could mount the long ARCA plate to the THK ARCA clamp or the short ARCA plate to the The ARCA clamp. I prefer the long ARCA plate as this is more directly mounted to the lens with better weight distribution.

With the WeMacro tubes this isn't an issue since the short ARCA plate isn't necessary because the F mount adapter fits properly.

You can't use the Nikon BR2A with the MJKZZ tubes, these tubes have an unknown to me threads (I've asked if anyone knows, but no one answered). They are about 57mm diameter, and seem to be some non-standard thread that only these eBay type tubes use. The tubes are OK, it's the F mount adapters that are the issue.

Agree it would be nice to find a ring adapter for these tubes so we could utilize quality F adapters.

Best,
You add a stepper motor, a NEMA 11 for the KR15, and NEMA 17 for the KR20 and 26. The NEMA 11 are 200 step while the NEMA 17 are 400 step. The KR15, and 20s have 1mm pitch, and the KR26 has a 2mm pitch, these are what I have and use.

You can operate any of these with the Stackshot Controller, or WeMacro, or MJKZZ controllers with the proper mating connectors. I've done this and know they all work.

Later I needed to go with a stack and stitch system, and purchased the somewhat expensive MJKZZ system which doesn't work with Mac OS (my fault for not confirming future Mac support :oops: ). So I had some excess motors, rails and extrusions & hardware on hand (why I have some MJKZZ rails). I starting looking into seeing if could adapt to what I had and quickly realized I needed either to get a PC or develop and completely new system, chose the later. Glad I did because this eventually lead to the development of the Trinamic based stepper controllers and operate at a different performance level which I've posted much information on.

The effort evolved to single, dual, triple and quad axis controllers all working from a Raspberry Pi and work with various rails and stepper motors, including the Stackshot, Wemacro and MJKZZ since the controllers are completely configurable & programmable . Now these controllers can support the nanometer level Piezoelectric Stages (with Piezo Stage Controller) with the Trinamic controllers, all from a single Raspberry Pi. So one could have a 3 axis Stack and Stitch system with coarse & fine Z axis if needed, the fine being from the Piezo Stage and coarse form a conventional stepper based rail.

Anyway, the THK are very high quality rails, some of the best available I believe. Many use them with their systems on many different platforms.

If you watch eBay sometimes the KR20, KR26 or smaller KR20 can be found for reasonable cost. These are easily adapted for macro use, and outperform the standard macro rails.

Best,

mawyatt
Posts: 2497
Joined: Thu Aug 22, 2013 6:54 pm
Location: Clearwater, Florida

Post by mawyatt »

mawyatt wrote:
dickb wrote:
mawyatt wrote: You can't use the Nikon BR2A with the MJKZZ tubes, these tubes have an unknown to me threads (I've asked if anyone knows, but no one answered). They are about 57mm diameter, and seem to be some non-standard thread that only these eBay type tubes use. The tubes are OK, it's the F mount adapters that are the issue.

Agree it would be nice to find a ring adapter for these tubes so we could utilize quality F adapters.
The ebay tubes I own come in 2 diameter s, 60mm for the Canon EF sets and 57mm for Sony E and Minolta MD. The speed seems to be 0.75. So the Nikon ones appear to be the same as the Sony ones. I use cheap M60-M58 and M57-M55 step down rings respectively to connect these tubes to other components. For this purpose maybe an M57-M55 plus M55-M42 step down ring would be a good solution. Or M57-M52 plus Nikon BR2A.
Dick,

Yes the Sony seems like it's the same size as the Nikon F mount tubes. I'm going to order some M57 adapters. This is really good news if these fit and the threads match, then we can forgo the sloppy F mounts and use a quality F mount like the BR2A with a M57 ring adapter.

Today is starting out on a good note :D

Thanks so much for responding,

Best,
Good news thanks to the note by Dick mentioned above. The 57mm to 55mm ring adapters fit these tubes in the MJKZZ kit. I went with 57mm to 55mm, then 55mm to 52mm since 52mm is size of the Nikon BR2A F mount adapter. You won't need the wobbly lens adapter either with these ring adapters since you can go from 52mm to any size like the Raynox requires, or 42mm, or another size with a simple ring adapter.

So for ~$40 extra (Nikon BR2A + 57M to 55F + 55M to 57F + 52M to 55F + 55M to 52F), now I can toss the MJKZZ lens kit loose and wobbly F camera and lens mounts in the trash, and have a nice rigid lens assembly without any fiddling or glue!!

Thanks to dickb for noting the 57mm ring adapters fit these tubes!

Best,
Research is like a treasure hunt, you don't know where to look or what you'll find!
~Mike

dickb
Posts: 342
Joined: Mon Jul 05, 2010 1:54 am

Post by dickb »

mawyatt wrote:So for ~$40 extra (Nikon BR2A + 57M to 55F + 55M to 57F + 52M to 55F + 55M to 52F), now I can toss the MJKZZ lens kit loose and wobbly F camera and lens mounts in the trash, and have a nice rigid lens assembly without any fiddling or glue!!

Thanks to dickb for noting the 57mm ring adapters fit these tubes!
You're welcome. Glad to hear it works well for you.

There is quite a bit of variation in the bayonet parts of these tube sets. The Canon ones I have are a poor fit, but one of my Sony E ones happens to fit quite well.

mawyatt
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Location: Clearwater, Florida

Post by mawyatt »

dickb wrote:
mawyatt wrote:So for ~$40 extra (Nikon BR2A + 57M to 55F + 55M to 57F + 52M to 55F + 55M to 52F), now I can toss the MJKZZ lens kit loose and wobbly F camera and lens mounts in the trash, and have a nice rigid lens assembly without any fiddling or glue!!

Thanks to dickb for noting the 57mm ring adapters fit these tubes!
You're welcome. Glad to hear it works well for you.

There is quite a bit of variation in the bayonet parts of these tube sets. The Canon ones I have are a poor fit, but one of my Sony E ones happens to fit quite well.
Agree, I had to get a bunch to get something reasonable for F mount. The other weak link is the F lens adapter, the lever arm pin in everyone I have is loose which allows some slight rotational slop.

You might notice I used 3 clamps with the MJKZZ system, this is because of poor F mount interface at the objective end. The "extra" clamp allowed "bracketing" the interface and freezing it's position, but left the camera end to deal with the sloppy F mount adapter. That's also been cured, now I can use the superb Nikon BR2A F to 52mm on the camera end and don't need the loose 57mm to F mount adapter with the kit....and don't need to use the ARCA plate to "freeze" the lens assembly to the camera body anymore!!

With these 57mm ring adapters I don't have to deal with any of this anymore...and now can focus on more important things!!

Thanks again for alerting us to the 57mm threads and available ring adapters.

Best,
Research is like a treasure hunt, you don't know where to look or what you'll find!
~Mike

Ultima_Gaina
Posts: 108
Joined: Sat Jan 28, 2017 11:19 pm

Post by Ultima_Gaina »

rjlittlefield wrote:Thanks, guys.

One more comment about focus...

With Canon tubes from Fotodiox on the rear, this assembly gives just about perfect infinity focus.

With Nikon tubes, as shown here, the longer flange focal distance of Nikon bodies makes the tube assembly a few mm too long, so it ends up focusing maybe 30 feet out.

Standard extension tubes are uniformly multiples of 7 mm long, so by just choosing tube combinations the focus error can be as large as 3.5 mm.

That's close enough for all but the most critical work with large NA objectives, say 100X NA 0.80 . (See the graph HERE.)

But if you want to get it dead on, then it's a simple matter to replace some of the M42 fixed tubes with an M42 focusing helicoid. Those are mechanically less rigid than fixed tubes, so they are best used in a vertical setup, or locked in place with epoxy after adjustment. (Duct tape would also work fine, if you prefer the mad-scientist look.) If you use a helicoid, remember to add flocking; some helicoids are almost like mirrors on the inside.

--Rik
Rik, Can you please share the formula you used to calculate the exact tube length required to work with the reversed Raynox DCR150?

Or maybe, if possible, what is the method you used to test if the system is focusing at infinity (or at 30 feet, as you mentioned above)?

I want to use a 50x/0.55 objective on Canon cameras; based on your graph, I can see that 10mm error is OK, but I would like to be spot on, anyway (for both FF and APS-C)

Thanks a lot!

Lou Jost
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Post by Lou Jost »

Why not just focus on the moon or something far away?

Ultima_Gaina
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Post by Ultima_Gaina »

Lou Jost wrote:Why not just focus on the moon or something far away?
That could work, I guess. I could buy a helicoid (as suggested), and play with it, indeed.

But, before jumping in a trial, I wonder if there is any theoretical background work available.

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

Ultima_Gaina wrote:I wonder if there is any theoretical background work available.
This is not a good place for sophisticated theory. That would require knowing information that is not published, like the locations of principal planes. It would also be more complicated than necessary.

As a matter of practice, there's no better method than focusing on a distant object.

I've done that with my own DCR-150 and written the numbers on labels on the lens, so I don't have to repeat the exercise every time I set it up on adjustable bellows. The labels say
Infinity focus at 175.9 mm from male shoulder of reversed lens to flange of Canon camera.

Infinity focus at 182.5 mm from normal front of lens to flange of Canon camera.
Those reference points, "male shoulder of reversed lens" and "normal front of lens" are chosen because they're simple to use in connection with a large slide caliper. I just set the caliper to the desired distance, remove the camera, and adjust the bellows to match the calipers.

Adjustments for other cameras are just to correct for the difference in flange focal distances.

There's no guarantee that any two Raynox lenses are identical, so to get the setting dead on, you should run the experiment with your own.

--Rik

Ultima_Gaina
Posts: 108
Joined: Sat Jan 28, 2017 11:19 pm

Post by Ultima_Gaina »

rjlittlefield wrote:
Ultima_Gaina wrote:I wonder if there is any theoretical background work available.
This is not a good place for sophisticated theory. That would require knowing information that is not published, like the locations of principal planes. It would also be more complicated than necessary.

As a matter of practice, there's no better method than focusing on a distant object.

I've done that with my own DCR-150 and written the numbers on labels on the lens, so I don't have to repeat the exercise every time I set it up on adjustable bellows. The labels say
Infinity focus at 175.9 mm from male shoulder of reversed lens to flange of Canon camera.

Infinity focus at 182.5 mm from normal front of lens to flange of Canon camera.
Those reference points, "male shoulder of reversed lens" and "normal front of lens" are chosen because they're simple to use in connection with a large slide caliper. I just set the caliper to the desired distance, remove the camera, and adjust the bellows to match the calipers.

Adjustments for other cameras are just to correct for the difference in flange focal distances.

There's no guarantee that any two Raynox lenses are identical, so to get the setting dead on, you should run the experiment with your own.

--Rik
Thanks, Rik!
This is valuable information and a good starting point for the experiment.

I am using the tubes from Wemacro. It means that I am starting from 160mm + the adaptor thickness. I just ordered an M42 helicoid and I'll do some tests.

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

Ultima_Gaina wrote:This is valuable information and a good starting point for the experiment.

I am using the tubes from Wemacro. It means that I am starting from 160mm + the adaptor thickness. I just ordered an M42 helicoid and I'll do some tests.
Glad to hear.

Note that my measurements are from the front end of the lens. Extension length to the back of the lens will be smaller by the thickness of the lens, about 15.5 mm for the one that I have.

So, given that Canon EF flange focal distance is 44.0 mm, the labels on my lens imply that extension from sensor plane, with the lens in reversed orientation, calculates to be 175.9 - 15.5 + 44.0 = 204.4 mm. This is pretty close to the 208.3 mm that one might guess based on the nominal 4.8 diopter strength of the lens. For practical purposes, either value would probably work fine, but again, if you want it dead on there's no substitute for focusing on a distant object.

--Rik

mawyatt
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Post by mawyatt »

Rik,

Is it that important to get this distance just right from an IQ standpoint, rather than an exact magnification standpoint?

I've always just got it close since I don't care about the actual precise magnification, and only IQ, but maybe I'm out in left field on this :shock:

Best,
Research is like a treasure hunt, you don't know where to look or what you'll find!
~Mike

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