Options for a camera stand

Hello,

 

I'm looking a 35mm SLR or a Leica Visoflex for a copy stand in my

darkroom. I do own a Hasselblad, but it's limited shots per roll and

the "fun n' games" of making a 35mm slide from a 6x6 tranny is not

pleasent. And we can all guess what would happen if I tried using my

Leica M2... "and that's _another_ out of focus picture of my top left

hand corner of my copy stand, again note the common 100 watt desk

lamp with blue filters..."

 

At university I remember when we where shown how to use the copy

stand, we all got told that we needed to use an SLR camera with a

good viewfinder coverage to avoid getting any extra unwanted details

on the edge of the frame.

 

The options I see are-

1. Buy a 35mm SLR or

2. Get a Visoflex for my M2.

 

Any sugguestions for a camera? Don't care what brand it is, cheaper

the better. Also the other option is getting a Visoflex for my M2 and

save me from buying ANOTHER camera. But I'm not sure how good the

coverage is and the local Leica shop has nothing nice to say about

Visoflexs.

 

Stu :)

I have a friend with a visoflex who said it drove him crazy.

 

If it's only on a copy stand, an old 100% viewfinder Nikon F2/F3/F4 or even a Canon F1n would do nicely,you can remove the prism on these and make or buy a waist-level finder. I believe all the above have mirror lockup. The Original Nikon F has a strange mirror lockup that often requires you to waste a frame between shots, or press shutter very faintly and pray. I don't know much about Canon's macro lenses but, the nikon AI 55 micro is good, and the Tokina 90mm macro is surprisingly good (photodo.com rating of 4.6) If you need to do wide macro, the Nikon 28mm AIS F2.8 is also good and focusses closely. If you're using flash instead of hotlights, then mirror lockup doesn't matter.

Echo that answer for an old Nikon F2, F3, or F4, though my preference would be for either the F2 or F3. The F4 is a pretty hefty and bulky thing which might be more clumsy on a copy stand. The body doesn't have to be pristine and either can be had for not too much money in that condition. In the case of the F2, one with a non-funtioning meter prism would represent an even better bargain since you won't be using it anyway. As for the lens I can only recommend from personal experience the 90mm Tamron macro lens. I've found it to be an exceptionally sharp lens with no really bad faults. I'm sure there are others which will suit you as well. As for the Visioflex, all I can say is that you can probably set up with an old Nikon body and suitable lens for the same or probably less money and have fewer troubles using it.

Stu,

 

(Isn't there a 35mm back for the Hassy?)

 

Get an F3, 100% viewfinder coverage. You can use 100% slide mounts or mask off the finder screen to match your existing mounts. The lens? It depends on what you are shooting.

 

1. Photographs or magazine pages- A flat field lens of sufficient focal length to give you room for your lighting.

 

2. Jewelry- Long enough for your lighting. Does not have to be corrected for flat fields unless the objects are practically two dimensional, such as military medals.

 

3. Small metal toys- Long enough for lighting and to give perspective you want.

 

I have Micro-Nikkors, but unless I am shooting a flat field, such as an autographed letter, a regular lens will often do the job. Of course, macro(or micro) lenses let you get closer without extension tubes or close-up lenses.

 

It is easy to forget about the distance needed for your lighting until you start setting it up. Sometimes lights are close, other times, more distant.

 

A long lens may give you the distance for lights, but not cover the whole newspaper article about your grandfather without being too far back for your stand. Easy trick: Turn the post around so camera faces back of stand, not front. Then place object on floor. Now you may have the distance needed. Or swing camera 90 degrees and affix newspaper to the wall.

 

Manual focus, nonmetered lenses will take care of most needs. Cheap and used. 50mm f/1.8 Nikkor or 55mm f/3.5 Micro-Nikkor. A 105mm f/2.5 Nikkor, 135mm f/3.5 Nikkor, or 105mm f/3.5 Micro-Nikkor. It all depends on the subjects. You can check the Nature Forum, looking at the older questions, Equipment-Macro Lenses listings, for some more info. Nature does not equate to Field Photography. Butterflies, insects, and leaves can be and often are shot inside.

 

Bill

Stuart - I ran my own photo lab for years, and I used a Minolta X300 with a motor winder, with a Minolta 50mm f2.8 macro lens on a Calumet copy stand for making duplicate slides. It must have made hundreds of thousands of exposures and never missed a beat. The 93 percent viewfinder coverage is no problem as it agrees exactly with the aperture of a Gepe slide mount, and besides, you can make up your own focus and framing test slide to suit. You can pick up the same outfit today for very little money if you look carefully. The macro lens is essential, otherwise the distortion found in most non-macro lenses will make nonsense of your viewfinder framing accuracy anyway.

Stuart:

 

As an old Leica (M-4) user, I really don't see any problem using a Visoflex III (my preference) and a Bellows II (if, needed) with your Leica M-2. With the use of the "black" 65mm Elmarit (Visoflex) lens, you should produce first class results. I've read that the "black" (the latest version) is better than the chrome model of this lens. My additional advice - if you go this route - is to add a the "chimney" to the Visoflex - an attachment that will make your photocopy efforts that much easier.

 

But the best thing about this suggestion is that you can easily maintain the quality of your (copy) images with your Leitz lenses.

 

Of course, the Visoflex system is "slow" compared to the relative "speed" of today's SLR camera, but since you're using it with a copy stand what real difference does it make if it's operation is a bit slower.

 

Exposure with your M-2 and the Visoflex system can be easily accomplished by simply making use of a Luna Pro with the enlarging attachment, a Luna Pro SBC with the larger and flat incident light meter attachment or some other similar system.

 

Having worked as a staff photographer at the University of Illinois - College of Medicine - Peoria campus - decades ago, we used a specially modified Nikon (viewfinder) to make copies, i.e. negatives from slides or old prints, duplicate slides, etc. The real problem was with the 100mm Macro Nikkor Bellows lens in that it had so much curvature of field - wide open - that you could easily focus on the (flat) center of the slide or image or specimen and have the rest of the image completely out of focus. You could also focus about half-way between the center and the edge and have everything else out of focus.

 

Of course, one could and had to stop down a number of stops to "correct" such excessive curvature of field, but then the shutter speeds would slow down considerably leading to the very real possibility of "camera shake" due to the fact that the vibration of the Nikon body was transmitted to the big Polaroid copy stand. Faulty results (camera shake, for example) were very possible since shutter speed would range from 1/8 sec or slower.

 

About the same time, I have also worked with the then new Leicaflex SL II and the Leica 100mm Macro lens and found that there was no curvature of field with the lens wide open and the ratio of reproduction at 1:3 or greater to down to 1:1.

 

Some of the above posted suggestions remind me of the clown who then served as the head photographer before he was let go. He was interested in obtaining the Leitz Reprovit Copy Stand, but he also wanted to add a motor drive to the Nikon body. Strangely, his thumb worked to just as easily advance to the film on this and other cameras, but his brain didn't. And for some reason, the real possibility of transmitted vibration during the taking of the photograph never entered his mind. And I could never figure out why he wanted to place a motor drive on a copy stand, since we rarely did extensive or hurried duplication jobs.

 

But then again, he was the type of person who constantly harped about "quality control", but NEVER bothered to keep track of the date when the E-6 chemistry was mixed and/or how many square inches of film that had been processed. His downfall came when he purchased a used slide processing machine to insure "quality control" - go figure that one out. Of course, with the advent of the (used) machine, the amount of chemistry used went from a one-gallon kit to 25 gallons of E-6 chemistry being used. Since we only processed a maximum of 12 rolls of 36 exposure 35mm film - only once in a great while, you can image the substantial increase of the cost of processing.

 

His real downfall was caused by the simple fact that the machine wouldn't fit through any of the darkroom doors and that's when the rest of the Yahoo's who went along with this fiasco realized that "something must be wrong".

 

I won't mention his name, but I will also inform you that he was a graduate of a famous (?) photography school in California.

 

Stick with your Leica and you won't be sorry!

 

Enough said and I do hope that this discussion will be helpful.

 

Bill

Bill - Just FYI - The copy stand in question used flash. The orders were for thousands of dupes of any one slide - don't know what sort of thumbs you've got, but the motor drive was essential to me.

 

Sorry I forgot the face paint.