Another Coin Photographer Down The Rabbit Hole.

Keep it here. I'm going to edit the thread title to reflect how the thread has morphed for you, and attract more readers who have knowledge relevant to you. Hope you don't mind my sense of humor.

Here are some pics of the adaper with my old canon point and shoot. SDave Does that title make me the Mad Hatter or Alice?

Yep, looks like there is an M39-M32.5 adapter on there. I use a pair of rubber gloves to get enough friction to tighten or remove such things.

Excellent. I love it when a plan comes together.

First pics first with the 105mm lens on Lincoln Cent




Then closest focus





Then best try at Peace dollar. a larger stand would allow a full frame picture. The bellows is only 1/2 retracted.

That stand may work, but I've never built a setup with that type so can't be sure. One thing to be very careful of is the "height" of the bellows and how it will fit to the stand. When I build setups with standard B&L A-Stands, I use either a Pentax Auto Bellows or a Vivitar bellows (Bellows System, not Triple Track) because they have a medium height from the tripod mount reference plane, and this puts the optical center of the bellows near the center of the viewing stage. A shorter bellows (like the Vivitar Triple Track) under-shoots the center, while a larger bellows (like the Canon Auto Bellows) over-shoots the center. Either under or over shooting is a problem as the stages are not that large and you will have trouble with coin placement on the stage. Your Novoflex is probably OK, but would be good to double-check before buying a stand. If you would measure the distance from the tripod mounting plane to the center of the optical axis, I can tell you if it will work with the B&L. You might ask the stand seller to measure the distance from hoop ring mount to center of the 76mm circle, and we can compare to see which type of stand would work best with the Novoflex. Keep in mind the bellows mount will add 1/4" to the height of the bellows.

OK, that is good. The B&L A-stand is ~90mm, so with a 6mm spacer this makes you about 15mm under-shot, which is workable. You could always add another 6mm spacer or two if you want to hit the center exactly, so this will work well to mount the bellows.

Interestingly, I was at the local electronics swap meet today and bought a stand similar to the non-A you linked to, though it's only 10" tall (which is similar to an A-Stand). It measures 100mm to center of optical axis, but visually the stage plate is in a different spot. On mine, the optical center is at 180mm out of 240mm total, or 75% of total stand length. On my screen, the non-A dimensions are 54 out of 82mm, or 66% of total stand length. This puts the optical center 9% of total stand length, or ~22mm, closer to the pole. The pole is visually in same spot on both, but mine has more extension from height adjuster to optical axis, visually consistent with the larger distance in the base. If my analysis is correct, this would give you 78mm to work with, and with 6mm mount thickness, the mount would be at 72mm from the optical center, near perfect for the Novoflex.

I doubt the non-A stand is any more difficult to retrofit than the A-Stands are. Removing the hoop ring requires you to disassemble the rack and pinion system but it looks easy enough to work with. The one I bought today seems quite smooth and precise, similar to an A-stand. In maximum-height position of the rack and pinion, my stand extends another 2-3/8" (60mm) from the mount height, so you would still probably need to extend the bellows mount a few inches above the top of rack and pinion to get the required working distance.

Overall I'd say you could make either stand work with the Novoflex, but the non-A stand seems a better fit for both distance to optical center and especially for the extra 2" height, which will help you get the WD you need for the 105mm on Novoflex.

edited to add: I have purchased several items from this seller in the past with good results. I did receive an item that had problems, and he accepted the return, but then blocked me from bidding on his items. I have no issue with the seller, just wanted you to have this info in interest of full disclosure.

So the bar you add to connect the stand to the bellows is a piece of stock aluminum bar, right not stainless steel. Would you mind giving me the dimensions of this?