Pixiq

As soon as you enter this larger than life realm your enthusiasm for the secret worlds runs up against Dark Forces: not a case of "I'm pickin' up good vibrations bap bap..." I don't care how pure and unsullied a life you have led at this level every tiny movement of hands, subject, camera (shutter bounce)  softens images in a way that you cannot pass off as 'artistic'. I know, I have tried.

A 2x-5x magnification is all that is practical (just) in the field where the slightest movement of subject (or camera and lens) becomes an earthquake.  Generally, I switch off  the autofocus and focus either by moving camera plus lens or moving the subject  to focus.

Here are some ideas for camera supports. I don't design from scratch... I take a look at stuff I have, bits I can pick up or odd bits of metal that were meant for something very different.

• The way I support camera/subject for focusing tends to operate on the principle (used in the best microscopes where camera and add-ons are fixed) of moving the subject rather than the camera wherever possible.
• In its simplest form, on a solid table with camera fixed and your specimens on twigs etc you can focus whilst looking through the viewfinder. Slide the subject support holding both hands/forearms steadied on the table.  It is surprising how precise this is.
• You can also use a bean bag to support a camera with stacked lenses which is excellent at ground level for absorbing vibration. Spanish macro photographer Luiz Manuel Nunez whose work we featured on our Images from the Edge Blog has done amazing spider shots with hand held stacked lenses…
• With shots of moving creatures let them come into view (ants on a stem) where you have pre-focused and use a cable or wireless release. Trying to follow them is hard – impossible at times.
• It is not the easiest photography you will ever have done – don’t be too ambitious and work first with a 105mm macro or a 135 telephoto or a zoom and a 50mm lens so you get the feel for what 2x on the sensor is like. Finding the subject through a stacked system is sometimes the main problem – but the results are worth it.

For something a bit more sophisticated and smooth, the camera assembly is fixed to a focus slide or support which is, in turn, clamped to a table. You can use a very rigid tripod as well. That was the idea behind the simple alloy bar below, fitted with quick mount and focus slide. The FOB:  Field Optical Bench if one wants to glorify it with a title. Any vibration of camera and subject then occurs togther…with video work this is more complicated and pioneers such as Peter Parks of Image Quest 3D used ideas of ‘coupled vibrations’ adjusting distances so that resonance was obtained between subject and camera. It touches on ideas of ‘moments of inertia’…chunky calculus that I willingly left behind years ago.

Years ago I built a first optical bench – basically a rigid bar coupling camera and a subject table with adjustments on both for position so I could focus. It is not original – this sort of thing is standard in optics labs and you can find some very interesting stands and adjustments in catalogues dealing with laser optics where things have to be done with great precision.

• The camera and subject mounts are made from lengths of 1.5" square alloy bar: they slide in a channel that uses the same bar as spacer and sides of 2' x 1/2" bar. The channel was created by drilling carefully through all the allow material into the bar and tapping a screw thread so they could be bolted together.
• The camera is fixed to an Olympus bellows (home-made adaptors fit Nikon or Sigma bodies to this) and any lens to the other end.
• The bellows rail is smooth-focusing and sits on a Manfroto screw drive that I thought would produce finer movement but did not.
• The subject mount is a cannibalised focus stage from a microscope which gives X -Y movement whilst the whole thing sits on another focus stage.

It works!

Precision Focus

• I use focus racks – either separate or part of a bellows: there is a choice between rack and pinion and lead screws. Rack and pinion of the quality of Novoflex is superb. The rack is inclined at an angle and there is negligible ‘backlash’ that tiny movement of the adjustment screw before it takes up the gearing and moves the subject/camera.
• Lead screws are essentially very accurately cut micrometer threads that move a camera with great precison (1/100^th mm) and are great for stacking shots with Helicon.
• Manfroto make a budget version though it is worth trying a few of them because sometimes the movement wobbles a bit.

Check out Novoflex for focus racks: also The Really Right stuff. and Kirk Photo. The wonderful Edmund Optics is Nirvana for anyone interested in precision optics. Cognisys Inc has an amazing focus rail for stacking that is precision electronic driven.

I have been experimenting with a new focusing rack…take one already cannibalised microscope stand and an angle grinder (gently). It is shown in the picture. I realize not everyone is of a practical bent (or even bent practically…as they say) but you will certainly know someone who is. All you need is to be able to clamp and drill accurately and then tap a thread….

I have run tests with it and it works great – the idea is/was to do stuff when the cold and grey makes staying indoors the best choice.

Here is my first “macroscope’ – basically a microscope stand (bought from a junk store) to which a Nikon bellows is fitted and used with a whole range of lenses…more soon on types of lens and sources of adaptors.