Pixiq

Recently I unearthed my old Nikon PB4 bellows (bought new in 1982) only to find the black paint was flaking off both outside and inside the bellows. Knowing the current PB6 bellows does not have the shift and tilt facility on the front extension, I was loathe to jettison my beloved unit.

Therefore, I sent it to Gray’s of Westminster in London – a specialist Nikon dealer that sells not only new Nikon equipment but also superb quality second-hand gear. My bellows arrived at Gray’s on a Monday and just two days later on Wednesday my immaculately repaired bellows was in my hands – now that's what I call service!

This was all thanks to Toni Kowal who hangs onto second-hand gear, which does not sell, just in case parts can be 'scavenged' for repair. In this case, a PB-6E unit (when attached to the PB6 bellows it doubles the length to over 400mm to give a whopping 22:1 magnification) was missing the long tripod fitting and so this bellows was used to repair my PB4 by a London repair service.

All this happened so speedily I had not figured out which lens I would now use, because I have to be one with an outer manual aperture, not the internal design of recent lenses.  Rummaging through cupboards filled with gear I hadn’t used for years, I unearthed a 50mm f1.8 lens with an aperture ring, which was perfect.

The next hiccough was that any body with a protruding built in hand grip (including my current D3 bodies) fouls up the mounting of the bellows. The solution is to insert an extension ring as a spacer between the body and the bellows. It is possible to use the 8mm PK11A ring  (Note: the PK11 should only be used with manual bodies), although the camera then has to be mounted in the vertical position. After mounting, the camera can be rotated to a horizontal position.  Then each time you want to remove the camera it has been rotated vertically which is not a problem – just a slight hassle. As Toni happened to have a second-hand 12.5mm PK12 ring which allows the lens to be mounted vertically, I opted for that. However, I then found even this was fouled by the Really Right Stuff quick release L plate, so I replaced it with short release base plate.

So I am now ready to go!  By the way, when using bellows you loose the AF  function as well as the metering, but with digital this is not a problem when taking a static subject that is not going to flee because you have the time to check the histogram and to chimp the monitor. If you are using flash as the prime light source, you will soon get to know the ball park exposure for a given extension, which can then be tweaked if necessary.

The colour shots here I took a while back to show what can be achieved with bellows without reversing the lens.  Much greater magnifications are possible using a reversing ring to attach the lens front first to the bellows.