My DIY macro rig

STM

Senior Member
I came upon a YouTube video by Allan Walls, who is a terrific macro photographer, on how he built his DIY macro rig. Using his ideas and tweaking it a little bit for me I came up with my version. It is constructed of 3/4" MDF (Medium Density Fiberboard) and the base is 24"x 36". There is a "sled" which rides between two rails and has mounted on a Z-Flex base and macro focusing rail. It slides through a good bit of travel and can be locked in place with a plastic knob once you have adjusted it. On the other side of the sled,attached to the base is a laboratory scissor lift platform with a XYR Macro Stage I got through Wemacro.com. Also attached to the base is the framework for my DIY light tent. The light tent is constructed of 3/4" Sched 40 PVC and is 23" cubed. I did not glue any of the pieces so the majority of it can be dismantled for easy storage. Only the bottom part of the framework is attached to the base with black nylon zip ties. Tools you will need are a router, drill and either a circular saw or jig saw. Anyone with rudimentary wood working skills can easily construct this rig.

This rig makes doing any kind of macro work a snap. Once set up, you can use the macro focusing rail to incrementally move the whole rig to do focus stacking. The light tent allows for an infinite number of lighting combinations using flash or continuous light. The diffusion material is simply a piece of white material I got at Walmart and folded it in half to give very diffused light. I have folded one of the side pieces up so you can see the construction of the rig.

Here I have my D850, PB-6 bellows and 50mm Nikkor attached to the macro focusing rail. Once set up, I can knock out 40 focus stacking images in about a minute and a half.

If anyone is interested, drop me a line and I can send you my construction drawings.

Macro Rig.jpg
 
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STM

Senior Member
Very similar to my setup. Is your 50 reversed? I use a botched-Ai-conversion 28mm reversed and can get to 14:1.

Yes, the 50mm f/1.4 is reversed and I have a BR-3 attached so I can focus at maximum aperture and then close down to working aperture before taking the shot. How much bellows extension do you have to get to 14x with a reversed 28mm?
 
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480sparky

Senior Member
........How much bellows extension do you have to get to 14x with a reversed 28mm?

All of it.

DOF is incredibly thin. When shooting letters printed on paper, I can't focus on all the ink spread through the paper fibers.
 
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STM

Senior Member
All of it.

DOF is incredibly thin. When shooting letters printed on paper, I can't focus on all the ink spread through the paper fibers.

Using the standard formula for magnification, Bellows extension/focal length, you would need about 400mm of bellows extension to get to about 12x. You can add about 2x +/- for reversing it. I don't know of any bellows that allow that much extension short of a 4x5. The PB-6 only allows about 215mm of extension. I added two PK-13's to the bellows to get the extension I did for this one.
 

480sparky

Senior Member
Using the standard formula for magnification, Bellows extension/focal length, you would need about 400mm of bellows extension to get to about 12x. You can add about 2x +/- for reversing it. I don't know of any bellows that allow that much extension short of a 4x5. The PB-6 only allows about 215mm of extension. I added two PK-13's to the bellows to get the extension I did for this one.

I also had my 3-pc Kenko extension rings on it.
 
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