Vivitar 283 vs. Nissin MF-18 Macro ring flash

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Vish_007
Posts: 101
Joined: Fri Feb 11, 2011 10:31 am
Location: Birmingham, Alabama - USA

Vivitar 283 vs. Nissin MF-18 Macro ring flash

Post by Vish_007 »

After following excellent discussion on camera vibration and Exposure ( http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... vibrations) I wanted to test my old Vivitar 283 on my setup with Nikon D7000 which I purchased in October of 1976 for $ 76.00 at that time it was advertised as “system flash for SLR cameras”, and it is still in great shape and very functional. More recently, I purchased a similar “system flash” for current breed of DSLRs, Nissin MF-18 macro ring flash ($ 439 at B&H).

My Setup:
http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/u ... ide2_1.jpg

Vivitar 283
http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/u ... ide3_1.jpg

Nissin Macro-ring flash
http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/u ... ide4_1.jpg

My setup consists of D7000, homemade Nikon / Olympus mount adapter, Olympus tele converter 0.4x, Olympus bellows and Nikon 10x FL finite objective. In order to protect my D7000 from high 283 sync voltage I used Wein sync voltage regulator ( http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/2 ... oe_to.html). This is a little handy devise for using DSLRs with any legacy flash systems.

Nissin MF-18 macro ring flash ( http://www.nissindigital.com/mf18.html) will work with Nikon and Cannon DSLRs. It is more versatile than other similar products I have seen. I was impressed by the total independent flash controls available (Auto, E-TTL, i-TTL, wireless, fine macro, manual settings), in addition each half of the ring flash can be independently controlled for fine light modelling. All changes are made rapidly on the module LCD screen itself. In manual mode for example one has total control of flash output (1/1 to 1/64 on side A and B), a very useful feature for reducing camera vibration at high magnification.

Results: I am still testing the process, however my preliminary findings are very encouraging. For the Vivitar 238, setting at 1/32 or 1/64 output through VP-1 Veripower module work very nicely. For the Nissin, manual settings at 1/16 – 1/32 flash output works great with my setup. D7000 was set on manual mode, at 2 seconds. Images taken at 1.3 seconds are soft. For the test 18-20 images are stacked with ZS, and final image was post processed in PS5.

Image
Last edited by Vish_007 on Thu Sep 27, 2012 7:08 am, edited 1 time in total.
Vishnu

elf
Posts: 1416
Joined: Sun Nov 18, 2007 12:10 pm

Post by elf »

Why such long shutter times? Are you in a totally dark room? I use second curtain flash, but set the shutter time to only be long enough to just eliminate ambient light. It's usually around 1/80th of a second.

One way to see if you have a lot of shutter/mirror lockup vibrations is to place a shot glass of water on top of the camera and then trigger the shutter. If you can see the vibrations, try putting sandbags on top of camera. I could see a significant difference in my setup with a 5 pound weight on top of the camera.

Vish_007
Posts: 101
Joined: Fri Feb 11, 2011 10:31 am
Location: Birmingham, Alabama - USA

Post by Vish_007 »

Why such long shutter times? Are you in a totally dark room? I use second curtain flash, but set the shutter time to only be long enough to just eliminate ambient light. It's usually around 1/80th of a second
I am using long shutter times to eliminate mirror and shutter curtain vibrations. I tried 1/80, 1/125 and several in between 1 second and 1/80 with no improvement, see the more detailed discussion on this subject at ( http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... vibrations) especially the concluding remarks by BugEZ.
Vishnu

abpho
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Joined: Wed Aug 17, 2011 7:11 pm
Location: Earth

Post by abpho »

I do the same thing.
1. Mirror Up.
2. 2 second delay
3. Activate Shutter
4. Fire flash at rear curtain (if one is used)
I'm in Canada! Isn't that weird?

elf
Posts: 1416
Joined: Sun Nov 18, 2007 12:10 pm

Post by elf »

I would expect the flash at low power to stop any camera/subject motion. Adding mass to the camera should also help dampen the vibrations quicker.

Vish_007
Posts: 101
Joined: Fri Feb 11, 2011 10:31 am
Location: Birmingham, Alabama - USA

Post by Vish_007 »

elf wrote:I would expect the flash at low power to stop any camera/subject motion. Adding mass to the camera should also help dampen the vibrations quicker.
Yes, I tried 1/4 - 1/80 sec with low Vivitar 283 flash output (1/32) still the images were soft. The mass on my current system is approximately 1 kg including all rails, belllows, lenses and camera body etc., and not comfortable adding additional weight as that might effect Stackshot motor. 2 sec shutter setting with mirror up on D7000 gave me the best results.

Best,
Last edited by Vish_007 on Thu Sep 27, 2012 7:17 am, edited 1 time in total.
Vishnu

Harold Gough
Posts: 5786
Joined: Sun Mar 09, 2008 2:17 am
Location: Reading, Berkshire, England

Post by Harold Gough »

Vish_007 wrote:I am using long shutter times to eliminate mirror and shutter curtain vibrations.
Doesn't you camera have anti-shock aka time delay? Your chosen shutter speed would be activated at the end of that.

Harold
My images are a medium for sharing some of my experiences: they are not me.

Vish_007
Posts: 101
Joined: Fri Feb 11, 2011 10:31 am
Location: Birmingham, Alabama - USA

Post by Vish_007 »

Harold Gough wrote:
Vish_007 wrote:I am using long shutter times to eliminate mirror and shutter curtain vibrations.
Doesn't you camera have anti-shock aka time delay? Your chosen shutter speed would be activated at the end of that.

Harold
I am assuming you mean self-timer, yes Nikon D7000 has self-timer and remote control inputs. I use Nikon wired remote control for shutter release with mirror up.
Vishnu

elf
Posts: 1416
Joined: Sun Nov 18, 2007 12:10 pm

Post by elf »

I can understand your reluctance to add more weight to the camera :) Cognisys could probably tell you the maximum allowable weight for a Stackshot. I suspect that it should be able to handle quite a bit more than you have on it now.

Can you repeat your tests with the camera separately (that is not attached to the Stackshot)?

Vish_007
Posts: 101
Joined: Fri Feb 11, 2011 10:31 am
Location: Birmingham, Alabama - USA

Post by Vish_007 »

elf wrote:I can understand your reluctance to add more weight to the camera :) Cognisys could probably tell you the maximum allowable weight for a Stackshot. I suspect that it should be able to handle quite a bit more than you have on it now.

Can you repeat your tests with the camera separately (that is not attached to the Stackshot)?
Will repeat the test next week, however see below the images taken with totally different camera system on the microscope. Nikon DS-Fi1 microscope camera has electronic shutter and very small mass (<200 gm). This is not a fair comparison with Nikon D7000; however the point being internal camera movements due to mechanical shutter travel are a real problem.

Image
Vishnu

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