I revisited this old thread of mine and I have to laugh and confess. Last October I thought I had completed the set up. Its almost four months later and I have modified the set up again. I suspect I will never be satisfied so I am sure the set up will never be complete. the current modifications came about because I had some problems that just wouldn't go away or just annoyed me:
- I was getting much softer shots than I expected
- The camera position was annoying me. The camera always seemed to be mounted the wrong way
- With the stackshot focusing rail plus a bellows the camera ended up almost above the very front edge of the copy stand base
Problem 1: softer( blurred close in detail) shots than expected. My camera, Full Frame 36 megapixels with no low-bypass filter, should take very high resolution shots but at times I was often getting shots worse than my 24 MP APSC camera.
Solution 1: for a long while I thought the problem might be the camera and therefore unfixable. My camera doesn't have an electronic front curtain shutter and the net has abounded with stories regarding shutter shake and my particular camera. I did a lot of research; the so called shutter shake was only known to occur in certain circumstances. Those circumstances weren't applicable to my usage. The dreaded shutter shake only occurs when a very large(long lens) is attached to the camera and is used tripod mounted( with the tripod mount on the lens body). The usual cure is an L plate( added extra weight to the camera) attached to the camera. The known problem didn't seem to relate to what I was experiencing but it gave me a clue, I realised the weakest link in my set up was the ball head I was using as a mount. It was a good ball head but it just added to much flexibility to the system. When I added the stackshot focusing rail and Bellows there was just too much room for vibration. My solution, to this, wasn't cheap wasn't cheap I purchased a novoflex clamp, this one to be specific:
http://www.novoflex.com/en/products...pods/clamps/It wasn't cheap US$105.00 but it was big solid and strong. Before I attached it to the copy stand I got the dremel out and with a cutting disk reduced the length of the mounting point so as to ensure the clamp was sitting as close to the vertical riser as possible: the logic being less leverage less vibration. It also help to get the camera away from the front edge of the base board (Problem 3). Getting rid of the ball head and changing to that clamp saw an immediate improvement in sharpness.
Problems 2 & 3 took a great deal of thinking. Two pieces of information ended up leading me to my current solution. The first: The research on the shuttershake had introduced me to the fact that something called an "L plate existed". An L plate is an accessory that speeds up mounting of a camera to a tripod. As long as your tripod( and the L plate) is an Arca compatible item. You fix the L plate to the camera and you can mount the camera very easily in Landscape or portrait orientation. The second piece of information was the fact my bellows had a camera mount that could be rotated 90 degrees. It was so frustrating as I kept on thinking it be great if that mount could be rotated 180 degrees. I took the bellows camera mount apart at least twice looking to see if I could modify it non destructively, I couldn't. A s it was an expensive bellows I was not prepared to make irreversible modifications.
The solution: I am not sure how long it took me. Lets just say it took longer than I care to admit.....
Mount the bellows on an L plate then the 90 degree mount rotation is perfect( ie: mount the bellows to the copy stand sideways) But what about the times when I didn't use the bellows... thankfully the solution came much faster. Mount the camera to a second L plate: in this case the solution is 2 L plates = one U mount. I actually looked for U mounts but they either don't exist or have a name much more logical than what I have used("U mount").
What about the camera sitting too close to the front edge of the copy stand board? With the two L plates that problem disappeared completely The camera is positioned much closer( above) to the center of the board albeit right of centre. Here are the pictures to show the new set up. I had to use my "new"( 1975 vintage) fish eye lens for one shot( well 2 actually):
The first shot shows the work space and the stackshot focusing rail mounted on the first L plate. ( the following shots will add more context to what you are seeing)
Fisheye birds eye view:
Normal shots:
This one shows how the stackshot focusing rail is now mounted ( this does keep the set up well away from the front edge of the base board). You can see I have an Arca standard clamp mounted to the stackshot
From above again:
Note the levels built into the clamps. I use them for setting up but I recheck with the red two way level seen in the above shot( it is sitting on some coins and a washer).
Heres the set up with my bellows mounted. My bellows now has an arca standard quick release plate that remains permanently attached ( speeds up mounting the bellows) ( Note I have an L plate permanently attached to my main camera) I do think this mounting can be made better..One for my future improvements!
Final shot when I use this particular lens( Sigma 105mm EX macro) I have to use a special adapter. I mount the second L plate to the tripod mount of that adapter
These ,modifications have been in place for only a couple of weeks but the improvement in steadiness and ergonomics has been phenomenal. I am not finished. I have a Stack shot Arca mount on the way this will bring the camera much closer to the centre of the base board. I also have a Wembley Arca Clamp( three mounting screws instead of one) on the way to mount to attach to the new stackshot Arca mount. I hope this gives some of you ideas on how to improve you mounting systems.
Posted 10/27/2014 11:33 am
Great Results!
