Fibre optic goosenecks

[elf]

the kitchen sink. I wanted a white studio to get some light onto the arms...

I like your studio, it's much neater than mine. I'll bet it's easy to keep clean

[enricosavazzi]

I've been experimenting with different goosenecks salvaged from other sources in order to make them self supporting but haven't got a good solution yet.

I remember from my days of using stiff gooseneck illuminators with stereomicroscopes in university labs that it was easy to place the ends of the optical bundles "almost" in the right position, but virtually impossible to place them exactly how I wanted. They always sprung back a little.

Now I am using floppy optical guides held in place by small Manfrotto hydrostatic arms, and they can be locked exactly in the desired position without any backlash. So I find floppy light guides actually better.

I am using mine without lenses, but adding a lens at the end collimates the beam and increases the total light intensity somewhat (albeit onto a smaller area of course). It also lets you keep the end of the light guide farther away from the subject.

[AndrewC]

.....

Now I am using floppy optical guides held in place by small Manfrotto hydrostatic arms, and they can be locked exactly in the desired position without any backlash. So I find floppy light guides actually better.
.... .

I have the same problem with the Bogen flex arms I use - the spring is too springy ! The hydrostatic arms look great (an alternative would be Wimberley macro arms) but expensive. What I'm leaning towards is just a clamp on top of a small ballhead.

[AndrewC]

That's what I was going to say. Some of the $5 and $10 flashlights I have/seen have incredible lenses on them - adjustable too. But I kinda wonder if this FO thing is thinking it backwards. I mean copper wire is easier to work with and then just put a white LED or 2 or 3 at the end. For self supporting bendable necks you can try to find some of that tubbing - I dunno what it's called exactly. Or you can just buy a $5 length of soft copper solid-core "rod" like the kind used for 220VAC mains (hint hint) and wrap your shielded leads around that.

I think the main reason FO is used if that it doesn't transmit heat. But for microscope specimens an LED or two behind a ping-pong ball should be cool enough. An old PSU from a computer will serve as a smooth source of power - you could even put a dimmer switch in-line in front of the LED(s). Sounds like a $20 project and about an hour to hook up.

If you wanted to get fancy make the copper rod and supply leads "unplugable" from the base and use a RC car battery to make it mobile. Maybe attached to a camera L-bracket or something handy for the camera.

So you need to go back to the original problem statement In my mind, lighting for macro needs to fill the following needs:

1) Continual illumination so you can judge the affect of different positions, filters, etc
2) It would be good if you can use the same light to deliver a sub millisecond flash to freeze vibration
3) (this one is more debatable) Needs to be a broad band source.

LEDs are attractive but have a couple of drawbacks

a) not a broadband source (and i have enough colour challenges already)
b) high power ones (and I have a lot) can easily supply enough light for continual illumination but not so easily to mimic a flash. For the continual illumination you can use PWM to control the brightness, for a "flash" you need to dump a lot of energy out of a capacitor in a short time. Not impossible but you can waste a lot of expensive leds testing it and dumping a 10A pulse requires some tricks. So you have two combine two control circuits - a constant current PWM and a supercapacitor charge dump.

My thinking leads me to a combined solution pumping the light in through a light pipe: LED plus flash. Not rocket science - I think Charlie made up something similar - or you can just visit Novoflex:

http://www.novoflex.com/en/products/mac ... ht-source/

[ChrisR]

WIth filters and lenses, around US $2000.

[enricosavazzi]

My thinking leads me to a combined solution pumping the light in through a light pipe: LED plus flash. Not rocket science - I think Charlie made up something similar - or you can just visit Novoflex:

http://www.novoflex.com/en/products/mac ... ht-source/

It looks like a simple beam splitter will do the trick. There is usually enough distance in a normal fiberoptic illuminator between the halogen bulb and the collimator in front of the light port to place a small beam splitter, so it should be possible to modify one of these illuminators to make it look just like the Novoflex one.

The price of the Novoflex one is "on request", meaning if we have to ask, probably we cannot afford it.

[ChrisR]

Clamps derived from these?
http://www.machinemart.co.uk/shop/produ ... mps-stands

or
http://www.noga.com/pdfFiles/sphl.pdf

and there's more:
http://www.noga.com/pdfFiles/modu.pdf

[AndrewC]

Clamps derived from these?
http://www.machinemart.co.uk/shop/produ ... mps-stands

Nah, derived from a nice piece of waxed beech nestled on a chrome steel 20mm steel shaft. I'll put a picture up as soon as I've finished wrestling with an anther and saturated reds (all will become clear ...)


..... pause ..... here you go. Right now they hold hot shoes for strobes but only one small step from there to holding light pipe.





The beech base now has 2kg of Russian Tungsten inlaid to give it some heft (not as cool as half a mountain of Italian marble !)

[bklein]

Those wooden clamps are simple and cool.

In regards to the LED approach, I'm not so sure using flash and pwm together are that much of an engineering challenge. I've only briefly been paying attention to IC controllers for this purpose and it seems they will do both - they are becoming common on some compact digital and phone cameras. As they may be good enough for that kind of distance I would think they would be adequate for our closeup work..

[g4lab]

I remember from my days of using stiff gooseneck illuminators with stereomicroscopes in university labs that it was easy to place the ends of the optical bundles "almost" in the right position, but virtually impossible to place them exactly how I wanted. They always sprung back a little.

I have had this annoying experience too. Including with some brands that ought to "know better".

[Planapo]

Yes, if you look for light guides I too recommend getting the flexible ones for the reason mentioned above.

You make really nice things from wood, Andrew. I will see if I can have Him "reverse engineer" such clamps with our electric jig saw and drill. They would nicely fit the enlarger stand I use with one of my vertical set-ups.

--Betty

[enricosavazzi]

I have the same problem with the Bogen flex arms I use - the spring is too springy ! The hydrostatic arms look great (an alternative would be Wimberley macro arms) but expensive. What I'm leaning towards is just a clamp on top of a small ballhead.

I have one Manfrotto (Bogen is a rebranded Manfrotto) flex arm, and I am not using it much for the same reason. It is too weak to support anything useful (it sags too easily) and at the same time it springs back too much. It got a little more useful by mounting a small ballhead and clamp at the free end, but still it cannot carry much more than a small/medium reflector. There is a "heavy duty" gooseneck arm that might be stiffer, but then it probably tends to spring back even more (I have not tried it).

I have a variety of Manfrotto arms, including three variable friction arms for heavier stuff and the mini and small hydrostatic ones (two of each), and I use them all the time - I could actually use a few more. Much more useful than gooseneck arms.

[ChrisR]

Anything for "hobby" application seems to be so overpriced, whether it's for fishing, football or photography.
Imagine what the price-tag would be for this if it had "photo macro" in the description:
http://www.ee-usa.com/warehouse/panavise209

[Tesselator]

So you need to go back to the original problem statement In my mind, lighting for macro needs to fill the following needs...

OK, I see.

Thanks for taking the time to explain it.