Don't buy the ball head for a monopod, too wobbilly. Try a manfratto 3232 tilt head. It adds less weight and allows vertical shots with a twist of the wrist.
My advice would be, find a lab with a reasonable price. "Do it your self" at four at a time is a real drag. I have 30-50 thousand (from 1953 and on) and have tried the "Do it your self" four at a time it works, but deadly slow. I suggest having the most important sides processed, within your budget and over time work your to the least important. Otherwise you will end up with a pricey gadget on the shelf and thousands of slides next to it.
Amazon has several models, roughly $10-$16. I guess it depends on lens size.
I have a Wolverine that also has a screen that you can review all of your pictures. The batteries last a long time and it has a lot of storage.
Years ago the norm was macrophotography was down to 1:1.
Microphotography was beyond that. I guess Electron microscope is even beyond that.
Back in 1953 when I bought my first 35mm camera, this was my question, why 50mm? This was the lens that came with "all" cameras. I was told that this was close to human vision so the pictures would look "normal". Could all the manufactures be wrong. I doubt it.
re: COMPOSITION, I have seen photographers deliberately shoot a scene wide just so they can compose it in post processing. It's called selective cropping.
AA was a great lab tech as most admirers know. But he was also a great photographer. I just have a problem with a lot of today's shooters that are spending hours trying to covert " snap-shots" into art and then taking a bow for being a great photographer. Call it what you want, but 1/125 of a second to grab an image and hours to apply the "artistic touch" is closer to being a computer tech than a photographer.
I guess I'll 'll have to find some "craft" use for the couple of dozen colored filters that are currently collecting dust in my closet.
I have done a similar trick. I have mounted a little manffrato 3232 ti!t head to my old Vivatar monopod.I can now take vertical and horizontal shots with a twist of the wrist.
I agree with westj. If you don't get it right in the camera and have to "post-process" the image, I feel that you are a "lab tech" not a photographer.
If you shot slides, you learned to get it right the first time as there was no "post processing".
I have one. They are really great meters.
Look around various sites/ dealers. I remember thread restoring tools for a nominal price. I had the same problem and restored the threads with a block of wood cut to the proper inside diameter an used it to restore the proper curvature.
I agree that "gather" was not the best choice of words, but I was more interested in multi-cropped pixels vs a single FF pixel. Thanks for you reply.
I have a question. I hear that a pixel on a full frame sensor gathers more light than a pixel on a cropped sensor. As I see it, and I could be wrong, but aren't there about three cropped pixels in the same space as one full frame pixel.
It seems like they wouldn't have to work as hard to gather the same amount of light. Just curious.