digit-up Loc: Flushing, Michigan

I have spent some time trying to locate a collar for my new Fuji MACRO. Some never use a try-pod for macro, some almost always do. I like to use a try-pod for lots of my Close-up & Macro pictures....So i kept trying to locate a collar and foot that would fit. The lens is big enough and HEAVY enough, but no-one has the collar for this, very good, lens. I wondered why fuji doesn't make one>>???? I called a friend that is a fabulous photographer, cuz i thought he might have an idea about where to find one. Interestingly enough, he said" come on over, I'll make you one.. He has a "3-D printer" and it's pretty amazing. Though it doesn't produce perfect items, they're darn close, and better than "good-enough,....Check out these pics of the fabricated collar and foot.. The nut has some residual grease that i applied to keep the threads clear of the J.B. Weld, that was used to keep the thing locked in . I should have wiped it away before i sent the pics, Sorry, cuz it looks crummy......RJM P.S. I forgot (initially) to include the pic that shows the home-made collar' prime(dime) feature the twist knob I made, after the fact..Kinda country BUMKIN, Aint I ???

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JRiepe Loc: Southern Illinois

Just curious why you didn't just mount a tripod plate to the bottom of the camera body. I have a tripod collar on my macro lens but it's 180mm.

digit-up Loc: Flushing, Michigan

The weight of this lens is just more then I felt comfortable having hanging from the body's screw hole. I didn't believe that a quick release plate would change those FORCES adequately.. I have a 150mm Macro for my K-1.. Most lenses that big Do have a collar..... Yours doesn't??..............RJM

JRiepe Loc: Southern Illinois

Yes, I said that I do have a collar on mine.

Winslowe

The lens only weighs 750g. Is your camera THAT flimsy?
With the collar on the front of the lens, the rig is not well balanced on the tripod.

digit-up Loc: Flushing, Michigan

I guess I made a mistake. I thought folks might be as impressed as I with my friends 3-D printer being able to “print “me out a lens collar. I didn’t expect the usual, know-it-all folkers commenting just to be rude and condescending. I’m soory, my mistake!!

Mark Sturtevant Loc: Grand Blanc, MI

Please forgive them. Many folks have the 'engineering gene', and that means they want to see how to improve things. They meant no harm.
I think this is pretty awesome! I had a big and heavy lens that was similarly designed to not give any space for a collar, and so like this there was no collar for it. I had to improvise.
Do you think this set up is more-or-less balanced front to back? It does not look like it, but of course 'looks' mean nothing.

sscnxy

Mark,
You're a gentleman to the max! That's why I enjoy reading your input. Take care.

NMY

digit-up Loc: Flushing, Michigan

In a perfect world, this lens would have accommodated a lens collar somewhere more near a posterior segment, or mid segment at least. They(FUJI) more than likely would have included a collar with it then. It isn’t a perfect world, or a perfect placement of a collar, but my evaluation of the capacity of this lens to be supportive of the weight of itself and any of my x-bodies, at the segment of it that the collar fits, was much better than hanging it all off the camera bodys’ little “screw-in”. It certainly looks un-balanced (Because, IT IS) and it doesn’t look good, neither do i, but , though Not perfect, it serves my purpose, to be safely tri-pod mountable.. i appreciated your decency, and tactful kind way of pointing out the “Unbalanced end product”. It works though, imperfectly.............................................................................................................RJM : how did YOU improvise??

Mark Sturtevant Loc: Grand Blanc, MI

Maybe one could build an extension out of the rear of the collar foot to the camera base.
My solution was so-so. I bought a tripod collar and clamped it to the lens near the rear for approximate balance. That area of the lens was beveled slightly, so I added rigid padding to level out the bevel. The lens was a zoom lens, and the collar had to partially extend over part of the zoom range so instead of it being a 100-300mm, it was more like a 160-300mm. Not a fancy solution, certainly.

dennis2146 Loc: Eastern Idaho

Let me try this idea with you and you let me know if it is rude or not.

I also wonder why you might need the tripod collar on a lens of that size since I have a 105mm Nikon Micro lens on my D800 Nikon and have never even thought a tripod collar was necessary. Consider that my wondering is no insult to you and the fact you have a tripod collar on your lens. Don't I have a right to wonder if something you did was truly necessary? If I was a custom car enthusiast and had 8 headlights across the front of a car I built would you not wonder why I needed 8 headlights? It is common human nature to wonder why someone did something. There were no insults, just questions so others might gain some knowledge.

Now having said that I am completely impressed with your friend's 3D printer since I know nothing about them or what they can do. Now I know a little more. Is your tripod collar made of metal, heavy plastic, what? How long did it take to do that. Does the computer 3D printer feed information into a metal lathe, grinder, whatever machine does that sort of work?

Don't have such a thin skin. It does not become you.

Dennis

digit-up Loc: Flushing, Michigan

You are certainly RIGHT! My thin-skin is not a good characteristic, and I’m sorry I can be that way some times, but it has gotten so I don’t necessarily expect “kind, descent, & friendly from a number of Hogg folks , of late. To answer your inquiry about the 3-D printer; it uses spools of plastic string, kinda like weed-wacker ,stock plastic/ nylon stuff. The machine has a very hot nossle that lays down layer upon layer of melted plastic, in a pattern dictated by the program that one dictates to an SD card. A slow process that took about twelve hours to complete for my collar. But used about a dollar and 75 cents worth of the “STRING” . The basic 3/D printer cost $400 dollars. Fortunately for me, my friend is “all-about-gadgets”, and he was eager to demonstrate it’s’ abilities to me. Maybe I can get him to make a “Bridge from the collar to the cameras’ base” to give it more rigidity?? Spoils of the various plastic string cost from 20 to35 dollars, I think?..RJM

digit-up Loc: Flushing, Michigan

I want a tri-pod collar on a lens that size, 80mm because in shooting MACRO it is MY PREFERENCE to have the hearty tri-pod stability that this 74 y/o can’t provide by hand. Among other reasons, like, bored laziness, etc.............RJM

dennis2146 Loc: Eastern Idaho

Thank you so much for the explanation. I have heard of 3D printing but had no idea what it was about. How lucky for you to have a friend like that.

As for your thin skin I suspect each of us has thin skin about something or other. I sometimes do myself and it is usually about the most inconsequential things on the planet. It is the very little things that can get my goat so to speak. I can do well with big things, house burning down, vehicle accident, sickness and so forth. But let me not be able to find my glasses is especially irritating, even more so when my wife asks me what I am so angry about. When I tell her I can't find my glasses and she says, you are wearing them, it tends to give me a sheepish look to put it mildly.

May I suggest something I have tried and that is when I get angry about something like a posting here I wait a few hours or maybe the next day to post back my answer. Normally I find I don't even need to post because the anger I felt then isn't there anymore.

In your case with the tripod collar I honestly saw nobody putting you down. They are just asking if you needed a tripod collar at all. Just tell them you may not but think it will help your photography. Nothing more is needed.

Have a great day sir. Thanks again.

Dennis

digit-up Loc: Flushing, Michigan

Thin skinned or WHAT?... (my lovely wife,of 48 great years) tells me that my trip to South-East Asia left me with post traumatic stress disorder. I asked her why she feels that way. She says “because I’m angry for little to no reason too often” I guess my time in Vietnam and witnessing at least a death a day that year(that changed my Religion, politics, and philosophy ) THINNED MY SKIN TOO!! Sad isn’t it??.............RJM