Macro bellows

joolsveer

I have just bought a bellows (on ebay) to facilitate taking close up photos as I don't want to spend so much on a macro lens if I won't get much use from it. As you can see from the photo it fits the Canon mount and a Canon lens fits it. Only problem is that stopping down the Canon lens to the taking aperture is impossible because the electrical connections are not present.

Has anyone here got any bright ideas as to how I can control the lens diaphragm? Focussing is not an issue as moving the bellows will take care of this.

dalk

No experience of this, but if it does not have the electrical points, it must be designed to be used with old full manual lens...?

Borderfox

What is the lenses default starting aperture as thats what it will stay at, probably got to work around it.. mad looking yolk

Fajitas!

Buy Canon MF lenses? They still have manual AV controls.

Other than that, put your lens onto your camera directly, select your aperture, and then put the lens at the end of the bellows.

joolsveer

I had one many years ago that I used on my Pentax Spotmatic and it was a good cheap way of getting into the macro side of things. This one came from Shanghai and it seems to be well made and to work apart from the issue above. I might contact the seller and see if they have any suggestions.
Where would I get a Canon prime lens with a manual diaphragm?

Zombrex

joolsveer wrote:

I have just bought a bellows (on ebay) to facilitate taking close up photos as I don't want to spend so much on a macro lens if I won't get much use from it.

Nice piece of kit. How much did it cost if you don't mind me asking?

Fajitas!

joolsveer wrote:

I had one many years ago that I used on my Pentax Spotmatic and it was a good cheap way of getting into the macro side of things. This one came from Shanghai and it seems to be well made and to work apart from the issue above. I might contact the seller and see if they have any suggestions.
Where would I get a Canon prime lens with a manual diaphragm?

Ebay or a second hand camera shop - Try the Camera Exchange.

It takes the EOS mount I'll take it yeah?

joolsveer

Wicknight wrote:

Nice piece of kit. How much did it cost if you don't mind me asking?

It cost stg£26.99 plus postage of stg£10 giving a total of €53.32. It took exactly 14 days in the post and arrived well packed etc. The seller's username is cowy07.

Oriel

Let's see the results then...

joolsveer

sinecurea wrote:

Let's see the results then...

I will when I get it working....

elven

I've just managed to finally get my grubby little paws on an EOS 350D and last night was playing around with all my kit to check that it worked with everything I had for my old EOS 600. But when I tried to use it with my extension tubes (like these guys:http://www.bdimitrov.de/kmp/macro/ext_auto.jpg) my autofocus wouldn't work, and it gave me an error when I actually tried to take a picture with them connected.

I'm not hijacking your thread here, I actually had a point to make.... is it a 35mm camera you're using the bellows with or a digital one - would I be able to use bellows with the 350D or do I have to save up for a macro lens now?

Benster

Elven - I'd say all the more modern lenses require the CPU contacts that the modern cameras have, they do on the newer Nikon ones anyway. If there's no CPU pass-through contacts on the extension tubes, the camera can't communicate with the lens, therefore no autofocus/metering info is available.

elven

There are pass through contacts, they worked fine on my AF 35mm EOS, but they just seem to be screwing up my 350D.

joolsveer

elven wrote:

I've just managed to finally get my grubby little paws on an EOS 350D and last night was playing around with all my kit to check that it worked with everything I had for my old EOS 600. But when I tried to use it with my extension tubes (like these guys:http://www.bdimitrov.de/kmp/macro/ext_auto.jpg) my autofocus wouldn't work, and it gave me an error when I actually tried to take a picture with them connected.

I'm not hijacking your thread here, I actually had a point to make.... is it a 35mm camera you're using the bellows with or a digital one - would I be able to use bellows with the 350D or do I have to save up for a macro lens now?

Of course you're not hijacking the thread I'm delighted that someone else is interested in the issue.
I may have come up with a solution for my problem. I have some M42 screw mount cameras and lenses and I think I can get my hands on a M42 to EF adapter. The lenses are manual focus and the diaphragm can be stopped down manually. I'll give it a try anyway.
I want to use the bellows on a 1000FN film camera and a 350D digital camera.

elven

Let us know how you get on....

joolsveer

elven wrote:

Let us know how you get on....

Will do as soon as I get organised.

Blake

My macro experience..

I wanted to take some macro shots with a 300D, I started with a Canon to M42 adapter, used M42 extension tubes & M42 Lens (cheap on ebay) this kept me going for a bit until I tried Canon fit extension tubes (Jessops and with pass through contacts) - HEAPS better than the M42 stuff, the Canon lenses are vastly better than the old M42 one I was using and it was much easier having the electronics all working

A friend has a 350D and borrowed my extension tubes – worked some of the time but then she also got errors

We fixed it by very slightly slimming down the fitting of the extension tube with a Stanley knife so the contacts pressed just a slight bit more into the camera

Now works 100% on the 350D

With a set of extension tubes I have made some excellent photos I feel I have no need for bellows and no need for a macro lens – even using the extension tubes with the 18-55 kit lens produced great results.

elven

Ooh there's hope for me yet

I was scared when I got an error and just put it away because I didn't want to break my new toy!

jools - if you're in the vicinity you can give me a shout and have a shot of the tubes, after reading up it looks like bellows are far more hassle than they are worth... think the set of 3 tubes from jessops are £60 (sorry I don't have the hang of euros yet).

FX Meister

Fajitas! wrote:

Buy Canon MF lenses? They still have manual AV controls.

Other than that, put your lens onto your camera directly, select your aperture, and then put the lens at the end of the bellows.

Aren't the aperture blades spring loaded though? They won't stay at the aperture you select when you take the lens off the camera.

Beano

elven wrote:

Ooh there's hope for me yet

I was scared when I got an error and just put it away because I didn't want to break my new toy!

jools - if you're in the vicinity you can give me a shout and have a shot of the tubes, after reading up it looks like bellows are far more hassle than they are worth... think the set of 3 tubes from jessops are £60 (sorry I don't have the hang of euros yet).

The same guy that joolsveer bought the bellows from also does a set of extension tubes for stg£13 (about €20).

joolsveer

elven wrote:

Ooh there's hope for me yet

I was scared when I got an error and just put it away because I didn't want to break my new toy!

jools - if you're in the vicinity you can give me a shout and have a shot of the tubes, after reading up it looks like bellows are far more hassle than they are worth... think the set of 3 tubes from jessops are £60 (sorry I don't have the hang of euros yet).

Thanks for the offer. I live in D15 so if you are anywhere near drop me a PM.

joolsveer

I managed to hook up the bellows between my 350D and a Zeiss Sonnar 135mm 3.5 lens. I used the lens at F8. One word of caution - the objects are not parallel to the shutter plane. I will need to rethink my setup to facilitate this. I am happy enough with these shots but maybe my eyesight is not what it should be!

The shots are full frame (uncropped).

Please feel free to criticise and offer advice as to how I should proceed at a macro level.

joolsveer

Exar Khun

Sorry to be off topic, but that thing looks bad ass.

Dimy

That sure looks massive! Nice experiment you're doing there jools and good on you that you got it working. It seems like an aweful lot of trouble to get there though, but hey... you did it.
Flowers and insects always make nice objects for Macro shots, so maybe you can try and shoot a few of those.

Fajitas!

Not to impose on your set up, but getting some white paper or card to really bring out the white reflections of the coin. It seems very dulled out at the moment.

joolsveer

Thanks for the comments and advice. I will try to make some improvements next time and hopefully get better results.