Nikon PB-6 bellows?

Have questions about the equipment used for macro- or micro- photography? Post those questions in this forum.

Moderators: rjlittlefield, ChrisR, Chris S., Pau

morgan
Posts: 25
Joined: Wed Jan 09, 2008 3:59 pm
Location: UK

Nikon PB-6 bellows?

Post by morgan »

Hi all
I've been considering upgrading my tatty old bellows, possibly to a Nikon PB-6, and would like to know if they are worth the extra money.

Anyone use/used these? or recommend another make/model?

Thanks in advance.

augusthouse
Posts: 1195
Joined: Sat Sep 16, 2006 1:39 am
Location: New South Wales Australia

Post by augusthouse »

Hi Morgan,
I use a PB-6. Build quality is excellent. It is a fine piece of gear; though of late I've been considering the PB-4 because of its swing- shift capabilities.

Craig
To use a classic quote from 'Antz' - "I almost know exactly what I'm doing!"

DaveW
Posts: 1702
Joined: Fri Aug 04, 2006 4:29 am
Location: Nottingham, UK

Post by DaveW »

I can confirm what Craig says, the quality of the PB-6 is excellent but whether they are worth their new price when you can usually pick up a mint set off EBAY auctions much cheaper, as I did, is a matter of opinion.

I have always wondered about the PB-4 bellows Craig, do the swings and shifts work in both vertical and horizontal directions? From the looks of them they only work in the horizontal direction and with a camera pointing downwards you want the swings and shifts in the vertical direction to really make use of the Schiempflug Principle? I suppose the bellows could be turned on their side to do this, but it is not so easy.

The other point I have read is you need a lens with a large image covering circle to allow for it being shifted far off axis without vignetting, maybe this is not such a problem in macro work? There was obviously some reason Nikon dropped the swings and shifts after only using them for one set of bellows.

http://www.trenholm.org/hmmerk/SHBG05.pdf

http://photonotes.org/cgi-bin/entry.pl? ... gprinciple

http://www.photosafaris.com/Articles/TiltLenses.asp

DaveW

augusthouse
Posts: 1195
Joined: Sat Sep 16, 2006 1:39 am
Location: New South Wales Australia

Post by augusthouse »

Hi DaveW,
Yep, you're right re- the PB-4. Those links you provided made for good reading too.

Lester Lefkowitz has a good example of the Scheimpflug Principle on page 83 of The Manual of Close-Up Photography. It's difficult to tell from the setup image in the book, but it appears he is using a Micro-NIKKOR 55mm 1:3.5 with an aperture setting of f5.6. (however, in the accompanying text he refers to f11 ?) Whatever; the results are impressive.

Here's a link to the 'RedBook' that shows the PB-4 on it's side..

http://homepage2.nifty.com/akiyanroom/r ... el135.html (the text on this linked page is translated somewhat from Japanese - so the 1000 years bit may or may not be a bit optimistic.... gotta love his passion though!)

Seems the second portion of Morgan's original post remains open.
Anyone use/used these? or recommend another make/model?
Craig
To use a classic quote from 'Antz' - "I almost know exactly what I'm doing!"

morgan
Posts: 25
Joined: Wed Jan 09, 2008 3:59 pm
Location: UK

Post by morgan »

Thanks all

The bellows I use work well but have considerable amount of slack in the joints that is difficult to contol at high magnifications.

As the Nikon PB-6 appears to be well made I will try and obtain a set via e-bay.

Many thanks.

Planapo
Posts: 1581
Joined: Tue Nov 07, 2006 2:33 am
Location: Germany, in the United States of Europe

Post by Planapo »

Just a question that pops into my mind: Is the ability of a bellows to make use of the Scheimpflug Principle still desirable at times when extended DOF can be achieved by stacking?

--Betty

rjlittlefield
Site Admin
Posts: 23564
Joined: Tue Aug 01, 2006 8:34 am
Location: Richland, Washington State, USA
Contact:

Post by rjlittlefield »

Is the ability of a bellows to make use of the Scheimpflug Principle still desirable at times when extended DOF can be achieved by stacking?
Yes. It is helpful when only a single exposure can be taken, for example with a moving subject, or more extreme, to shoot video. It can also be used in combination with stacking, to get more DOF that is also placed better with respect to the subject and hence requires fewer frames in the stack than without Scheimpflug.

--Rik

augusthouse
Posts: 1195
Joined: Sat Sep 16, 2006 1:39 am
Location: New South Wales Australia

Post by augusthouse »

Betty,
I've uploaded the page from Lester's book and included the external link below. It's a 200ppi image so the accompanying text should be legible.

Lester Lefkowitz - Page 83

Craig
To use a classic quote from 'Antz' - "I almost know exactly what I'm doing!"

rjlittlefield
Site Admin
Posts: 23564
Joined: Tue Aug 01, 2006 8:34 am
Location: Richland, Washington State, USA
Contact:

Post by rjlittlefield »

Interesting picture. I gather the exit pupil of that lens is fairly far back -- otherwise there'd be some be field cutoff (vignetting) from the edge of the bellows with that big bend in it.

--Rik

augusthouse
Posts: 1195
Joined: Sat Sep 16, 2006 1:39 am
Location: New South Wales Australia

Post by augusthouse »

Rik,
I'm not sure about the exit pupil. I know you guys covered it in-depth in another thread.

If this is the lens I suspect it to be then I have one on-hand and if I recall from some of your lens tests you also have one in your kit?

Also just realised that I saved that image for the web, so resolution is not as previously stated; but does the job.

Craig
To use a classic quote from 'Antz' - "I almost know exactly what I'm doing!"

rjlittlefield
Site Admin
Posts: 23564
Joined: Tue Aug 01, 2006 8:34 am
Location: Richland, Washington State, USA
Contact:

Post by rjlittlefield »

The "exit pupil" is just like the "entrance pupil", except you look into the back of the lens. In other words, it's where the aperture appears to be, as seen by the film/sensor.

A side note...

From an optical standpoint, it's unfortunate that these bellows implement their tilts at the front mount. That's because tilting the lens to get more DOF also moves the sensor way off the optical axis of the lens, requiring a lens with much than a sensor's width of usable field. I'm guessing the lens that Lefkowitz pictures on the front of a 35mm camera is designed to cover at least 4"x5" film, if not bigger.

It would be much better from the standpoint of lens aberrations to tilt the sensor, not the lens. Of course that introduces geometric distortion -- keystoning. In the days of film, keystoning would have been a serious problem, since correcting it would have required still more tilts in the darkroom enlarger. But with digital, correcting it could be easy and automatic, given a nicely integrated system.

On the other hand, there are other issues with light striking a digital sensor at any angle very far away from perpendicular. It's hard to know how the package deal would work out.

I don't recognize that lens as being anything I have. What do you think it is?

--Rik

augusthouse
Posts: 1195
Joined: Sat Sep 16, 2006 1:39 am
Location: New South Wales Australia

Post by augusthouse »

Micro-NIKKOR 55mm 1:3.5?
To use a classic quote from 'Antz' - "I almost know exactly what I'm doing!"

rjlittlefield
Site Admin
Posts: 23564
Joined: Tue Aug 01, 2006 8:34 am
Location: Richland, Washington State, USA
Contact:

Post by rjlittlefield »

I don't think so. The caption says "photographed at m=0.28x (1:3.5)" and that lens is sitting maybe 8" in front of the camera. That combination implies a focal length a lot more like 200 mm than 55 mm.

--Rik

DaveW
Posts: 1702
Joined: Fri Aug 04, 2006 4:29 am
Location: Nottingham, UK

Post by DaveW »

I agree with Craig, it looks like the old 55mm micro Nikkor I used to have, not a 200mm Nikkor. The question is was it simply for illustration in that picture, or was it the lens used to take the fish?

Lefkowitz's illustration makes my early point that the tilt/shift would have been more use in the vertical direction because with most subjects horizontally you would either move around, or move them around to get parallel with them, whereas the camera is often pointing down at a subject so that is the way the tilt/shift is more use.

As said earlier, I wonder why Nikon discontinued the tilts and shifts if people found them so useful. Maybe if they came out with bellows that tilted and shifted in both horizontal and vertical directions they would have greater appeal?

Doesn't a lens extended for macro photography have a greater covering circle anyway, otherwise you would not be able to use a microscope lens on bellows and cover a digital sensor. So presumably you could shift a 35mm format lens quite a way off axis the further it was extended from the sensor plane?

Novoflex did a bellows in which both front and back standards tilted as Rik wished:-

http://www.photographyblog.com/index.ph ... t_bellows/

DaveW

rjlittlefield
Site Admin
Posts: 23564
Joined: Tue Aug 01, 2006 8:34 am
Location: Richland, Washington State, USA
Contact:

Post by rjlittlefield »

DaveW wrote:I agree with Craig, it looks like the old 55mm micro Nikkor I used to have, not a 200mm Nikkor. The question is was it simply for illustration in that picture, or was it the lens used to take the fish?
Always a good question. The caption says only that the articulated bellows was used. It's possible that Lefkowitz mixed his illustrations, thinking perhaps to make the situation more clear instead of muddying it. It's also conceivable the lens is something else that just happens to look like a micro Nikkor. I have no way of knowing.
As said earlier, I wonder why Nikon discontinued the tilts and shifts if people found them so useful. Maybe if they came out with bellows that tilted and shifted in both horizontal and vertical directions they would have greater appeal?
Well, there's useful in theory and then there's useful in practice. I've used tilt/shift with view cameras, but that was always in very static situations. I've never had a bellows with tilt/shift, so I can't speak very well to how useful that might be in practice. Just offhand, I'd guess that tilt/shift would have been pretty handy with the carpet beetle here, but I haven't tried it.
Doesn't a lens extended for macro photography have a greater covering circle anyway
Yes, it does. For example, if that really is a 55 mm lens on 200 mm extension, then its covering circle would be about 5X bigger and would be appropriate to the situation as illustrated. But then it would also be recording at about 5X on the film, and we'd be needing to look at say a picture of an anthill to appreciate the effect.

--Rik

Post Reply Previous topicNext topic