P3D Hack a Nimslo to take close(r)-up shots

[Tom Gardner <tgg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In a message dated 22/09/98 16:16:12 GMT, J Norman wrote:
| Can anyone tell me whether, for hacking purposes, I'm better off with
a Nimslo
| or a Nishika (I'm interested in experimenting with a macro project
using the
| whole camera, or scavenging the lenses for a macro project using a
different
| camera).  Does it make any difference whether it's a Nishika or a
Nimslo?
| Thanks for any advice. 

I've no knowledge about the Nishika, but I did  hack my Nimslo to make 
it usable for taking closer-up shots. All I did was to adjust 
the position of the two centre lenses so that they focussed at about 
2.5', IIRC. Technique: take off the "leatherette", then the camera 
front, loosen the lockrings around the centre two lenses, then in a 
dark room put a brightly lit object at the desired position and adjust 
the lens position until the a sharp image is seen on a piece of ground 
glass held at the film plane. No rocket science needed.

There is no problem with the lenses' performance, but it is quite easy
to get 
excessive depth of field and to have an exaggerated Z dimension. I
presume 
these characteristics are common to all closer-up stereo photography,
and are
not Nimslo specific. Nonetheless, the camera is acceptable for 
pictures of, say, flowers (certainly better than anything else at my 
disposal), and the outer two lenses are still usable for conventional 
half-frame stereo slides. 

Summary: a quick'n'dirty hack that extends the usefulness of the camera 
without affecting its conventional use. Well worth it.

-- 
          The above are my own views, not the views of HP
Tom Gardner, Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Bristol, UK, +44 117
9229291      
There are two ways of constructing a software design: one way is to make 
it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other is 
to make it so complicated there are no obvious deficiencies - CAR Hoare


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