A penny for your thoughts. 105mm f/2.8 + 50mm f/1.4

In article ,
Rita Ä Berkowitz ritaberk2O04 @aol.com wrote:
DoN. Nichols wrote:

It might help somewhat to set up a bracket to hold the SB-800 in
a fixed relationship to the camera and lens.

This is what I currently use with the 105mm and it works great since I have
great subject/lens front distance.

http://www.geocities.com/ritaberk2003/eBay/Bracket.jpg

That is an interesting fixture. It looks like the flash on the
right is the SB-800 (or one in the same line, even back to the SB-28 or
so, since you are using a flash sync cord and an AS-15 adaptor or
something similar.

But what is the flash on the articulated arm to the left?

One thing that I would do with the articulated arm is to use a
file (or a milling machine with a rotary table) to round the corners
into a single continuous curve -- so they don't hang on something or
gouge your arm.

I'll have to find some gooseneck material and rig something up if I want to
use the 50mm attached to the 105mm.

I would suggest that you visit a professional audio store, and
look at the gooseneck mounts for microphones. There are even ones which
fork two goosenecks from a single mount for stereo microphone mounting.

If you need a way to mount the gooseneck to your bracket, I make
adaptors from tripod thread to the 5/8x27 microphone thread. (They
normally go to people who want to mount microphones on the lightweight
light stands.)

What I would suggest will take some searching, but will handle
the lighting and the closeup all at once -- since IIRC you are using a
Nikon D70.

Look for an old Medical Nikkor. It is a 200mm f/5.6 lens, with
a set of screw-in diopter lenses and a built-in ring flash. It is too
old to work as an automatic exposure setup -- but it is designed to
handle that part for you. You set the ASA (ISO) on one ring, and the
reproduction ratio desired (determined by the selection of diopter
lenses), and this sets your aperture correctly.

Thanks for the great tip, Don. I see one listed on eBay and it looks like
one hell of a kit that goes along with it. What is the current market value
for this setup?

That looks like a nice one. I need to find a source for the
focusing lamps (I'm down to the four in the unit now).

The manual I don't have, and if you win it, I would appreciate a
scan of the manual -- unless it is identical to the contents of the
section in the _Nikon F Nikkormat Handbook of Photograpy_, pages 6-41
though 6-47.

And I see that they actually have the keys to the lock on the
case. Another thing that I don't have, though I could make one if I
felt the need.

But the real nice feature here is the battery power pack.

The case will hold the lens (cradled in the curved end pieces),
with a Nikon-F body (with plain pentaprism, not the metering ones). I
haven't checked whether the D70 will fit with the lens mounted, but I
suspect not. (Not that that matters, I have too many other uses for the
D70, while I have spare Nikon-F bodies, so I can keep one with the lens
for film work.

As for what I paid for it -- I honestly don't remember. I
bought it at a photo swap meet, perhaps ten years ago or more. I doubt
that I would have bought it at the time if it had been selling for more
than $200.00 -- but inflation takes its toll, and this may well be a
reasonable price, considering the completeness of the kit. Especially
since you have people from all over fighting for it.

I'd best send this so you can see it before the auction closes.

Best of luck,
DoN.

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DoN. Nichols wrote:

That is an interesting fixture. It looks like the flash on the
right is the SB-800 (or one in the same line, even back to the SB-28
or so, since you are using a flash sync cord and an AS-15 adaptor or
something similar.

But what is the flash on the articulated arm to the left?

It's a cheapy $20 flash that I use for back fill. The nice thing about it
is I don't need wires and it is remote triggered by the SB800.

One thing that I would do with the articulated arm is to use a
file (or a milling machine with a rotary table) to round the corners
into a single continuous curve -- so they don't hang on something or
gouge your arm.

Good idea, it is now officially on the Honey-do list.

I'll have to find some gooseneck material and rig something up if I
want to use the 50mm attached to the 105mm.

I would suggest that you visit a professional audio store, and
look at the gooseneck mounts for microphones. There are even ones
which fork two goosenecks from a single mount for stereo microphone
mounting.

If you need a way to mount the gooseneck to your bracket, I make
adaptors from tripod thread to the 5/8x27 microphone thread. (They
normally go to people who want to mount microphones on the lightweight
light stands.)

That will definitely do the trick. I found a temporary solution, maybe
permanent if it works out for all situations. I put a ballhead on a compact
StroboFrame yesterday and the Flash is folded in a position that seems to be
working well. I also picked up a rear cap and a 46mm filter yesterday and
installed the filter in the cap after some cutting and hot-gluing. This is
working great. I no longer have to be excessively overprotective of the
lens.

I couldn't find anything really exciting to shoot last night so I took this
pic of a dandelion seed after sunset. This was handheld.

http://www.geocities.com/ritaberk2003/eBay/Dand.jpg

Here's one of an ant on a red flower petal. It's a bit blurry, but I like
the positioning of the light and shadowing.

http://www.geocities.com/ritaberk2003/eBay/Ant.jpg

That looks like a nice one. I need to find a source for the
focusing lamps (I'm down to the four in the unit now).

Have you considered halogen Mag-Lite flashlight bulbs?

I'd best send this so you can see it before the auction closes.

Thanks. I'm still uncertain if this is the way I really want to go since
I'm looking for portability.



Rita

Ken Tough wrote:

Can't remember what camera you're using, but if it's digital you
should be able to easily calculate the ratio from the number of
pixels between the millimeter marks. All you need to know is
the number of pix across your sensor and the size of the sensor.
[Okay, pixel positions aren't exactly the same as sensor cells,
but it all works out pretty much the same]

Thanks. I'm using a D70.


Rita

In article ,
Rita Ä Berkowitz ritaberk2O04 @aol.com wrote:
DoN. Nichols wrote:

That is an interesting fixture. It looks like the flash on the
right is the SB-800 (or one in the same line, even back to the SB-28
or so, since you are using a flash sync cord and an AS-15 adaptor or
something similar.

But what is the flash on the articulated arm to the left?

It's a cheapy $20 flash that I use for back fill. The nice thing about it
is I don't need wires and it is remote triggered by the SB800.

O.K. It simply detects the other flash, and triggers from that?
(I somehow doubt that it recognizes the "Commander" mode of the D70. :-)

One thing that I would do with the articulated arm is to use a
file (or a milling machine with a rotary table) to round the corners
into a single continuous curve -- so they don't hang on something or
gouge your arm.

Good idea, it is now officially on the Honey-do list.

O.K. Does the "Honey" who has to "do" this have machine tools,
or just files and drills? (Looking at the photo of the bracket, I
suspect the latter, but I'm not sure. :-)

I'll have to find some gooseneck material and rig something up if I
want to use the 50mm attached to the 105mm.

I would suggest that you visit a professional audio store, and
look at the gooseneck mounts for microphones. There are even ones
which fork two goosenecks from a single mount for stereo microphone
mounting.

If you need a way to mount the gooseneck to your bracket, I make
adaptors from tripod thread to the 5/8x27 microphone thread. (They
normally go to people who want to mount microphones on the lightweight
light stands.)

That will definitely do the trick. I found a temporary solution, maybe
permanent if it works out for all situations. I put a ballhead on a compact
StroboFrame yesterday and the Flash is folded in a position that seems to be
working well.

Great!

I also picked up a rear cap and a 46mm filter yesterday and
installed the filter in the cap after some cutting and hot-gluing. This is
working great. I no longer have to be excessively overprotective of the
lens.

A good move. I think that I would be likely to thread the end
cap to accept the filter as a screw-in, but then I do have the machine
tools to do it -- and no great confidence in hot glue for materials like
that. :-)

I couldn't find anything really exciting to shoot last night so I took this
pic of a dandelion seed after sunset. This was handheld.

http://www.geocities.com/ritaberk2003/eBay/Dand.jpg

I like that shot.

Here's one of an ant on a red flower petal. It's a bit blurry, but I like
the positioning of the light and shadowing.

http://www.geocities.com/ritaberk2003/eBay/Ant.jpg

Also nice -- though I would have liked it if the ant had turned
around about 90 degrees CCW,

That looks like a nice one. I need to find a source for the
focusing lamps (I'm down to the four in the unit now).

Have you considered halogen Mag-Lite flashlight bulbs?

Several problems with that:

1) The base is threaded, not the PR style used for the larger
flashlight bulbs, and the smaller Mini-Maglite ones would not
fit without a serious adaptor.

2) The envelope style is rather strange. Typically, most
flashlight bulbs have a weird shaped projection in the front
center where the bulb was sealed after being evacuated.

Old screw-base lamps for radio dial lights were often pretty
close to spherical -- with the pinch-off in the base with the
wires.

But these are as though you took one of the spherical ones,
heated it, and pressed in on the front while it was hot. This
is necessary to clear the lens screen in front of the lamps (it
is crowded in there, with the lamps and the circular flash lamp
too.

3) The voltage is wrong for a mini-maglite (which runs from 3V
(two 1.5V cells), while these are 6V lamps, all connected in
parallel so if one burns out, the other three remain in
operation. Hooking up mini-maglite bulbs would require hooking
them in series-parallel, so when one burns out, two go dark.
Otherwise, the Mini-maglite bulbs could be fitted with the old
bases and adapted.

What I might consider for the task is some of the high output
"white" LEDs, with a complete re-wiring of the voltage needed.

I'd best send this so you can see it before the auction closes.

Thanks. I'm still uncertain if this is the way I really want to go since
I'm looking for portability.

Well -- it is now closed (yesterday evening) at $462.65.

You could have had the portability with the battery pack which
was part of this one (and not part of my kit). You would have had to go
either to a professional photo store, or perhaps to Batteries Plus to
get the 150V battery which it runs from. The battery pack (or the AC
operated one) lives in a leather pouch with a shoulder strap. The AC
operated one has a power cord of perhaps ten or twelve feet (I've not
actually measured it). But it is old enough to have only a two-prong
power plug -- not the three-prong for safety grounding found on almost
everything today. :-)

At this point, I have no idea how frequently these show up on
eBay. This may be a once in every two years appearance (based on the
number of bids which it received), or it might show up once a month.

Do you have photo swap meets in your area? (Check the
classifieds for notices about them.) You might well find one for less.

If you even just find the battery pack, pick it up against
future acquisition of the lens with its full set of screw-on +diopter
lenses. (Note that the strongest of these lenses has no front female
threads, it is intended to be the front-most element (if fitted),
because its curvature is too much to allow any other position for it.)

If you find it, and decide to not get the lens, *I* would be
interested in the battery pack.

But, I may design my own someday -- designed to run from a more
modern battery. Perhaps I could design it to run from the same battery
pack that the D70 uses, to minimize the number of battery styles which I
need. (I would prefer to design it to work from four NiMH D cells, if I
can find them affordably. :-)

The only thing that I could see missing from the set which was
on eBay (or at least not mentioned in the auction description) was the
safety cover, to keep you from getting shocks from the Nikon F's strange
flash shoe which puts a repeat of the PC contact (which is at a fairly
high voltage) pretty close to your forehead. But since you would not be
using it with a Nikon F, this doesn't really matter. :-)

Best of luck,
DoN.

--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---