My new 1:1-1:4 LED studio rig

[leander]

I made this to shoot mainly flower blooms I pick from my garden, inside with either a pure white or pure black background. I'm using the Nikon D850 ability to capture focus stacks using lens focusing. Then I move the images to Lightroom, do some stuff to one, copy to all the others, then export to Zerene to do the stacking and move the finished image back to Lightroom.

Three Aputure Amaran AL-528W LEDs - two overhead and one for the background similar to "Meet your Neighbors" style. The two above are on Manfrotto heavy duty flex arms 237HD. I was getting a bit of shadow below the sample so I just added a Lume Cube Air to fill in a little diffused front light and that worked out fine.

I use this rig for 1:1 to 1:4 and in camera stack captures. I have a different rig that goes from 1:1 to 10:1 using Stackshot controlled by Zerene and lit with two flash.

Right now I'm holding the specimen using a Flowerpod (no longer available I believe) but I'm almost ready to mount an xyz stage once a tap a couple of holes to mount a platform.

When I go to black background I remove the rear LED and replace it with a black foam core box. Shooting at f11-f16 keeps it pretty black and then I'll go even blacker in post.

Any questions, just ask.

Bruce

[mawyatt]

Nice setup and arrangement, seems easy access to things and to make adjustments.

Really like the beautiful woodwork, miss the very old masterfully crafted wooden boxes that held precision instruments and devices. Now everything is plastic, or metal which works well but just doesn't have that special something that crafted wood possesses.

Best,

[MarkSturtevant]

Very nice work! That ought to shed some light on things!

[Roaming]

Nice new rig! Lots of room for each individual component, wont get stuck adjusting anything.

edit*

[ChrisR]

The question should really be in the
technique section
not to hijack Leander's Rig thread.
I'll leave you to do it because I can only move the whole post.

[AlisonP]

Very nice setup! Thanks for the detailed information.

I am gathering info to make my own rig for 5:1 to 10:1. You said that you have a different rig that goes from 1:1 to 10:1 using Stackshot controlled by Zerene and lit with two flash. Is there a post where you have shown that rig?