Vertical Stand

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mawyatt
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Location: Clearwater, Florida

Vertical Stand

Post by mawyatt »

William at Wemacro has introduced a new small footprint vertical stand designed especially for macro work.

http://www.wemacro.com/?product=vertical-stand

I put one together last night and must say this is a very well designed and machined assembly. Very sturdy and rigid, but with a relatively small footprint, and even has vibration damping feet.

I hope to get a stacking system setup on this soon and report the results.

Best,

Mike

ray_parkhurst
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Post by ray_parkhurst »

Looks very nice and a good price. Will be interested in seeing your results.

A metric I have been using n my work developing vertical stands for coin photography is visible movement in 200% Live View between camera/lens and subject. It will be very interesting to see how stable this system is and how long it takes to reach stability after a step and shot. As might be obvious, I have seen inverse correlation between "residual vibrations" and image sharpness.

mawyatt
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Location: Clearwater, Florida

Post by mawyatt »

This is a very well constructed stand, about as sturdy as one could expect with this size footprint (10" by 7"). One of the main reasons I use flash is because of vibrations, external, self induced (rail movement, mirror flop, shutter curtains), and other sources.

I'm in the mist of completing a 16 stitch (actually 19), 400 stack per stitch 6mm by 5mm chip image. Been working on this the past couple weeks, and almost complete.

So the stand complete setup and testing will have to wait a few more days.

Best,

Mike

ChrisR
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Post by ChrisR »

Looks good. Good price, (though shipping and customs put the price up by 83%!)
Chris R

mawyatt
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Post by mawyatt »

Chris,

This is very underpriced IMO. I don't think you could build this and machine a aluminum base yourself for less, the components alone are probably more than $100!

Well just finished my 16218 pixel by 11554 pixel chip image. My first real venture into serious stitching.

Best,

Mike

mawyatt
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Joined: Thu Aug 22, 2013 6:54 pm
Location: Clearwater, Florida

Post by mawyatt »

Update.

The WeMacro Vertical Stacking Stand is now offered with a longer 450mm vertical bar. This is a big help with those long lenses we tend to use with objectives.

I've just completed some stacking tests and the stand is very sturdy and works nicely with the WeMacro rail system.

I used the WeMacro Focus Rail and Vertical Stand setup with the Precision XY Positioner using a Styrofoam cup secured around the lens assembly as a cone diffuser. Lighting was from 3 strobes position at 120 degrees apart. A Nikon D800E camera body with a Nikon 200mm F4 "Q" used as a tube lens for the Mitutoyo 5X objective. I had plenty of vertical room to get things setup and aligned. Very pleased with the stacking image results!!

This Vertical Stand produces a nice, sturdy, compact setup that takes very little space vertically or horizontally. It's also much easier to get setup and aligned the subject and lens than my horizontal setup. A pleasant surprise was the vertical bar is only 2" square, so perimeter lighting is very easy to get setup and controlled.

Best,

Mike

JohnDownie
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Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2011 6:57 am

Post by JohnDownie »

Mike - do you happen to know if the threads on the base will allow the mounting of a JANSJÖ?

mawyatt
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Location: Clearwater, Florida

Post by mawyatt »

John,

It has 8 1/4-20 threaded holes, 6 are scattered around sides. See site below.

http://www.wemacro.com/?product=vertical-stand

Best,

Mike

JohnDownie
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Post by JohnDownie »

Thanks, Mike.

johan
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Post by johan »

Just want to say that I've had one of these for a couple of months - thumbs up from me. Very sturdy, good large support underneath, plenty of holes to attach stuff - very very handy for anyone wanting to set up their own rig.
My extreme-macro.co.uk site, a learning site. Your comments and input there would be gratefully appreciated.

JohnDownie
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Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2011 6:57 am

Post by JohnDownie »

johan wrote:Just want to say that I've had one of these for a couple of months - thumbs up from me. Very sturdy, good large support underneath, plenty of holes to attach stuff - very very handy for anyone wanting to set up their own rig.
Johan - how adaptable do you think the stand is to the MJKZZ precision kit rail?

John

mawyatt
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Joined: Thu Aug 22, 2013 6:54 pm
Location: Clearwater, Florida

Post by mawyatt »

The attachment to the vertical bar is with a long ARCA clamp. The ARCA clamp is bolted to the vertical bar which has many holes to allow different attachment points. The WeMacro focus rail has a ARCA compatible base that simply slides into the ARCA clamp.

If you have another focus rail such as StackShot or MJKZZ, these also have ARCA compatible bases and can mount the same way. The MJKZZ rail requires a larger opening ARCA clamp since it can't slide onto the clamp (the Stackshot can slide on from the motor end only, and has a stop at the other end), and the clamp must open wide enough to go over the rail base before clamping down.

I have a couple surplus THK KR20 focus rails modified with Peter's kit from MJKZZ. When I get the time I plan on taking a long 150mm ARCA base and drilling and taping mounting holes in the base to allow the KR20 focus rail to be directly bolted to the ARCA base and thus used like the other rails.

In my horizontal setup from 5~6 years ago I had done similar with a Thor sliding base clamp with the Stackshot rail, then MJKZZ and now the THK KR20 focus rail. This works beautifully as it allows easy sliding movement along the optical axis on the Thor rail that is securely bolted to a large Thor optical base plate. When in position the clamp is simply tighten securely holding the focus rail at that position. The same idea is employed in the WeMacro Vertical Stand with the long ARCA clamp, this allows vertical focus rail positioning along the optical axis and clamped when in position.

Note I mount my camera/lens to the focus rail with another shorter ARCA clamp that is orthogonal to the optical axis, this allows coarse side movement when setting up the subject to optical axis alignment. Fine subject position is by way of an X,Y positioner.

Best,

Mike

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