[photo-3d] Home brew macros

[ers <ers@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I also use a Nimslo that's been modified for CU, but you can't really use it 
as a macro camera, because the lenses are too far apart. The best you can get 
is a portrait camera, without serious image distortion. The simplest way of 
dealing with it is to use a Cokin compact camera adapter (alas, now out of 
production) and slip in plus diopter lenses. A plus 2 gives you sharp focus at 
about 17 inches and a plus 3 gives you sharp focus at 12 inches. You don't 
want to go beyond plus 3. The macro Realist clone I built has the lenses 
ground down on the inside, to get a stereo base of 16mm. I'm going to do 
further experiments to close it even further-- the limitation factor is the 
coverage of the Nimslo lens. If the coverage holds even during testing, I'd 
like to try for 14mm. I've built the camera in such a way that it's easy to 
replace the lens board, aperture plates, etc, and also adjust them when in the 
camera. I have a ground glass plate I stick behind the film guide to check 
level and image placement, as well as focus. Regarding the change in advance 
used in the TecoNimslo, you just grind off advance gear teeth in the Nimslo. A 
friend of mine built a 3 frame advance Nimslo by calculating how many teeth to 
grind off, so the film would be processed by the defunct Imagetech Lab (and, 
of course, masked one of the Nimslo lenses).

Elliott