8 feet of bellow for macro

[Robert Fisher]

For those interested in extreme LF macro:

URL below is for image of two bellows that I have been using for LF macro.

Both are for Sinar P/P2/Norma non metering. Both are 4 feet extended. Camera Bellows constructed these in August. One is a 45 to 57 - the other 57 to 810.

My project is finished, therefore won't be needing.

http://ip.rm16.net/photos/4557.jpg

[robert fallis]

Gosh, that's a lot of bellows, what on earth where the exposures at such extreme lenght
bob

[el french]

Do you have a photo of them in use? How about one of the macro images?

[Nathan Potter]

Or where'd you find a 2500 mm. lens!

Nate Potter, Atlanta GA.

[Peter De Smidt]

You don't need that long of a lens to use these bellows. I did a few macros with an enlarging lens and about 6 feet of extension with an 8x10. If I remember rightly, I used a 240mm EL Nikkor.

[DrPablo]

How many tripods are you going to need?

Do you put diopters on the lens? That may get you closer without needing so much extension.

[Bernice Loui]

I'm curious, even on 8x10, what magnification is needed for your subjects? Trying to keep all that stable is going to be a MAJOR problem. DOF will be an issue, exposure will be an issue. Would you consider a shorter focal length, less bellows draw, smaller format and mounting the macro subject on a plate sitting on a Sinar standard to keep everything moving somewhat together? Kinda, been there, done this before.

Scanned light macro photography can help greatly with macro DOF problems.

For those interested in extreme LF macro:

URL below is for image of two bellows that I have been using for LF macro.

Both are for Sinar P/P2/Norma non metering. Both are 4 feet extended. Camera Bellows constructed these in August. One is a 45 to 57 - the other 57 to 810.

My project is finished, therefore won't be needing.

http://ip.rm16.net/photos/4557.jpg

[DrPablo]

I agree -- I think that you're more likely to suffer from motion, shallow DOF, and/or diffraction from a tiny aperture, so that if you're trying to get a small coin to fill up an 8x10 frame, you might get better image quality doing a 1:1 macro on 35mm or 2:1 on medium format and then enlarging.

[Robert Fisher]

"Trying to keep all that stable is going to be a MAJOR problem"

Was ABSOLUTELY NOT a problem for me. All Sinar rail, standards - three HD tripods (ten pounds suspended weight on each)

"DOF will be an issue"

Yes

"exposure will be an issue"

Was ABSOLUTELY NOT a problem for me.

[Nathan Potter]

Or where'd you find a 2500 mm lens! I was kidding of course, but would be fun with landscapes - you'd want to use a short focal length lens for 10X macro to reduce the lens draw. When I was doing similar high mag. macro I found that an optical, vibration isolated table, and an optical bench mount for the camera, lens and bellows eliminated the vibration problems. Additionally I cranked up several halogen goose neck illuminators in order to achieve critical focusing. But in general I was always somewhat disappointed with the image quality obtained at small apertures. Not until I did a few images using a lashed up scanning macrophotography setup as mentioned above was I really happy and even then the width of the slit illumination exceeded the DOF of the lens used so I was unable to really optimize resolution on the film. But it's great fun - eh Robert.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.