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.
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.
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