Tuesday 11 January 2011

11-01-11: Mega Macro 1



This picture is uncropped, and the LED shown is 5mm (about 3/16") across!

I've finally got my act together and assembled what I'm calling my "mega macro rig"

It's made from a set of Kopil bellows that were designed to fit some kind of screw mount camera, a Canon EOS T mount, a Canon FD 10mm extension ring, and an FD 50mm f/3.5 macro lens.
The bellows and lens were given to me with the closure of some old darkrooms where I used to work, and I already had the T mount. The FD extension ring was the only bit I bought (I got a set of 3 off ebay to scavenge the bayonet from at least one)

The T mount doesn't properly fit the bellows, but the threads engage for a couple of turns and the whole thing seems pretty secure. I glued the FD mount to the front standard of the bellows so I can use any FD lens I want.
If I've done the maths right (by no means guaranteed ;)), I can achieve a maximum magnification of 3.6:1 with the 50mm lens.
Click image to view a bigger version

3 comments:

  1. Good Work. Great Result. How did you light it?

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  2. Thanks!
    It's lit by 2 sources, the first is the blue LED itself, which I had hooked up to a bench supply, and the second is a bit of white fill from an LED torch on camera left, highlighting the detail on the metalwork inside the LED.

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  3. I should probably have mentioned the light from this particular LED is a mix of blue and UV, which is causing the plastic case to fluoresce slightly, giving the top half of the LED a glow.
    The light is actually being emitted from the metal "cup" in the middle of the LED.

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