T3D Lincoln's Macro

[Rod Sage <rsage@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Hi all,

>I am lucky enough to have aquired a macrostereo
>camera.  It is a handmade hack by a man named Mr.
>Peterson.  It is very interesting.  If anyone would
>like to look at the little bit of paper work that I
>have on it, I put it up on my site:

>www.lincoln3d.com/images/petersonmacro1.jpg
>www.lincoln3d.com/images/petersonmacro2.jpg

I enjoyed seeing the paper work. The distances realized with the pos.
and neg. filters don't make sense. -4 would be more like 15" and +2
closer to 2" if no filter is 3".

>The only 2 things that I am not super happy about in
>order of importance are:

>1)  Even though it takes 5p image pairs (way cool!)
>the stereo window even when used in a 4p mount is much
>further back than I would want (way sucks!).  I want
>to try and alter the camera so that I can atleast
>mount the film in 5p closeup mounts.

>2)  No viewfinder of any kind.  I would like to be
>able to have an idea of what I am composing.

I see that there are "feelers" to judge distance. Maybe you could add
vertical feelers to frame the area covered such as the Realist Macro
does. That method seems more accurate than any sort viewfinder would be.
Plus would allow quick framing.

>So, any help would be appreciated.  I don't want to
>try and separate the lenses.  They are in their place,
>and I don't want to mess with that.  But, the lenses
>and shutter are part of one piece that is screwed to
>risers that are screwed to the body of the camera.  My
>thought of a solution is to get more risers and set
>the lenses (which are from a nimslo) further away from
>the film so that the subject that will be in focus
>will be closer to the lenses, and then alow me to use
>more of what is exposed on each chip.

By moving the lenses further from the film, you will be creating a
closer focus and thus will need even more cropping.
I believe you need to try negative filters of -2 or so and see what
happens to the window. Of course you image will be smaller and without
as much depth.
If you are at 3" with no filter, that seems awful close with windows of
24mm (1") separation. It also depends on the lens separation. Looking at
the drawing and measuring my Nimslo lenses, they appear to be about 15mm
separation.  If you know the focal length, you can calculate the angle
of divergence from 24mm through 15mm and determine the correct focus
point for that window.

>Does that make sense?  Am I missing something?  Should
>I buy a busted up old SLR to steal its ground glass so
>I can put it into the film chamber to check on the
>focus?  I have never done anything like this before.

On page 2 Mr. Peterson mentions painting glass black, scratching it and
projecting through it to find your focus point. Great idea!

>Lincoln

This is of special interest to me as I am contemplating a similar macro
camera as my next project. I found a large lensless shutter about a year
ago and have been playing with a Realist, but the center gear is a few
mm to close if I want 24x23 windows. So I have been searching through my
MF bodies for a possible victim. The Nimslo lenses are a great idea,
though they are a bit wide angle (30mm). I just picked up a cheap Nimslo
to experiment on. I was planning to use Realist lenses but they are in a
difficult mount.
So much for my rambling.
Rod Sage