Pentaxian Registered: March, 2018 Location: North Carolina Posts: 531 | | Review Date: March 30, 2018 | Recommended | Price: $16.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Everything works as it should; twin tripod mounts | | Cons: | Extension a little stiff and grabby | |
I got this little tool off Ebay at a good price. Macro photography is something I had never tried before but for a small investment it looked like it might be fun. I have a couple old SMC Takumars that I got years ago for my SP1000 that would work with the M42 thread. When the bellows arrived I looked it over and it appeared to be either unused or perhaps very lightly used. I was pleased to find two tripod screw sockets, one at the front and one at the back. I mounted a 105mm f/2.8 SMC Takumar on the front and an M42 to Fuji X adapter to the back, and then attached my Fujifilm X-T20. The whole shooting match went on a rather lightweight, amateur tripod which provided somewhat rickety support. I attached a cable release to give myself the best chance of not shaking the camera when I released the shutter.
For a trial subject I looked around the house and found a small shell, no more than an inch long. I found that focusing through the wide open lens was not difficult, and then the lens could be stopped down for the actual shot. I let the camera choose a shutter speed. The results were quite acceptable, especially since the Takumar is full of fungus.
My take is that the Spiratone "Rapid Rail" Macrobell is a great, cheap introduction to macro photography. For $16 I couldn't expect silky-smooth operation or a lot of special features. I got what I expected - a solid, usable tool.
Edit - On using the bellows I realized that with the M42 to Fuji X adapter on the back, the camera body sat far enough back so that it could be rotated for portrait orientation, so that's lagniappe, like my people in New Orleans say.
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Junior Member Registered: August, 2009 Location: Lexington, KY Posts: 30
4 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: August 20, 2011 | Recommended | Price: None indicated
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Light, strong, push-slide rough focus | | Cons: | A dust infuser for DSLRs | |
This is a very nicely done, if basic, manual bellows. It was cheap when I got mine new in the late 1970s and it should be cheap now. I bought a second one recently for about $15, but they often go for up to about $100 on eBay.
It's a little awkward to carry, but it actually is easier to use than extension tubes and faster to adjust than helical-focus macro lenses. You can use enlarger lenses with it, and Spiratone used to sell some with it as flat-field copy lenses, but I've found the very common old Vivitar 135mm f/2.8 works really well on it-- better than at least one real macro lens I own. Most often, I'll use the rapid movement to adjust the framing/magnification and then simply move the camera back and forth for focus... I sometimes tweak focus using the helical on the lens, but very rarely turn the focus knobs.
The only problem is that rapidly moving the bellows in/out is sucking a lot of air through it, and some dust will soon find its way to your sensor. Get a bulb blower and a sensor cleaning pen and get used to using them....
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