Nikon PB-4 bellows

Jon Shumpert · Jul 22, 2019

I just bought a Nikon PB-4 bellows and will receive it later this week. I was hoping to get some help on the favorite lenses to use on it. I have a 55mm f2.8 micro, and the 105 f2.8 micro. Those seem like obvious choices, but I also have a lens reversing ring and 50mm f1.4. I am also curious what people think of doing slide copying using a PS-4 slide copy unit versus scanning.

Kino · Jul 22, 2019

Those lenses will be fine, but don't forget you can get an adapter and use enlarging lenses to great effect. I used both the 55mm and 105mm micro Nikkors copying 16mm and 35mm motion picture film in a home built 3K motion picture scanner and they worked fine, however in the end I wound up using an enlarging lens to get more distance between the lens front and the aperture for 1:1 copying.

I have no experience with the slide copying unit.

Theo Sulphate · Jul 22, 2019

You can find the PB-4 manual online; it has a big chart that shows different magnification ratios with different lenses.

The PB-4 is the best of the bellows units.

mshchem · Jul 22, 2019

Jon Shumpert said:
I just bought a Nikon PB-4 bellows and will receive it later this week. I was hoping to get some help on the favorite lenses to use on it. I have a 55mm f2.8 micro, and the 105 f2.8 micro. Those seem like obvious choices, but I also have a lens reversing ring and 50mm f1.4. I am also curious what people think of doing slide copying using a PS-4 slide copy unit versus scanning.

I have these bellows and the slide copier also the 105mm bellows nikkor. With this lens you can focus from 1:1 to infinity. The bellows fit on my D850 fine. I've never used the slide copier but it's a really nice setup. Enlarging lenses are a nice match to this, gives you more distance from subject. I scan slides with a neat little Coolscan unit.
Read up on the reversing rings, I think the earliest rings may scratch the body electrical connections? ??

AgX · Jul 22, 2019

Macro lenses are designed for such imaging scale, standard lenses not.
A alternative are enlarging/copy lenses. Though at least the enlarging lenes are not designed for scale 1/1.

Kino · Jul 22, 2019

If you want the ultimate copying lens, look for a Nikon Printing Nikkor in 75, 95, 105 or 150mm focal lengths, but be prepared to pay upwards of $2K USD per example (when you can find one). The mount is an M45, which is a bit hard to find adapters for but are standard for motion picture optical printers. No finer lens was ever made...

http://www.savazzi.net/download/manuals/Printing-Nikkor.pdf

Here's the Rayfact variants:
https://www.daitron.com/documents/NikonRayfactSeries_Ver4.0.pdf

Jon Shumpert · Jul 22, 2019

I was trying to see if there were any videos on PB-4 bellows and surprisingly found none. I am thinking of getting a double cable release, but need to research which ones would work. I will be using it with a Nikon F2, F3 and Df which all have threaded cable release sockets.

narsuitus · Jul 22, 2019

Nikon Slide Copy by Narsuitus, on Flickr

At one time, I routinely used a Nikon PS-4 Slide Copy Attachment and a 55mm f/3.5 macro lens reverse mounted on Nikon PB-4 bellows to copy slides. I also used this same setup when I needed to digitize slide images.

However, I stopped using this setup when I bought a flatbed scanner that allowed me to batch-scan up to 24 slides (mounted or unmounted). Today, I only use the PS-4 set-up when I need to make slide-to-slide copies.

swchris · Jul 22, 2019

narsuitus said:
At one time, I routinely used a Nikon PS-4 Slide Copy Attachment and a 55mm f/3.5 macro lens reverse mounted on Nikon PB-4 bellows to copy slides.

If you copy the slides in 1:1 size, does it make sense / is it better to reverse mount the lens? In my naive understanding when making 1:1 pictures it shouldn't matter if the lens is mounted normally or reversed. Or does it matter?

regards,
chris

Dan Fromm · Jul 22, 2019

Jon Shumpert said:
I was trying to see if there were any videos on PB-4 bellows and surprisingly found none. I am thinking of getting a double cable release, but need to research which ones would work. I will be using it with a Nikon F2, F3 and Df which all have threaded cable release sockets.

I bought my PB-4 in 1970, still have it. It didn't have a cable release socket when I bought it and still doesn't.

If you want the lens to stop down when you press the button you'll need a double cable release, as you suggested, and a Nikon BR-4 ring. The BR-4 lets the lens stop down when its "button" is pressed.

narsuitus · Jul 22, 2019

Jon Shumpert said:
I was hoping to get some help on the favorite lenses to use on it.

My favorite lens to use on the PB-4 bellows is the Nikon 105mm f/4 short-mount macro lens. This lens does not have its own focusing mechanism because it was designed to use bellows or extension tubes for focusing.

Nikon PB-4 bellows allows this lens to focus from infinity to a reproduction ratio of 1.3x when used with a 35mm body or an FX digital camera.

I had to add an extension tube between the bellows and the DX digital body in order to provide clearance between the handgrip and the bellows. In this configuration, I loose the ability to infinity focus but that was no loss because I use this setup for close-ups and macro—not for focusing on infinity.

Nikon Close-up by Narsuitus, on Flickr

narsuitus · Jul 22, 2019

Jon Shumpert said:
I am thinking of getting a double cable release, but need to research which ones would work.

I never found the need to use a double cable release when shooting macro with my Nikon bodies.

Jon Shumpert · Jul 22, 2019

Thanks for all the replies.

narsuitus · Jul 22, 2019

swchris said:
In my naive understanding when making 1:1 pictures it shouldn't matter if the lens is mounted normally or reversed. Or does it matter?

Based on what I remember, it did not make much difference at a !:1 reproduction ratio. However, some slides I would copy 1:1 and others I would have to crop by using a magnification higher than 1:1. Rather than reversing the lens for the higher magnifications, I just standardized using a reversed lens.

swchris · Jul 22, 2019

narsuitus said:
Based on what I remember, it did not make much difference at a !:1 reproduction ratio. However, some slides I would copy 1:1 and others I would have to crop by using a magnification higher than 1:1. Rather than reversing the lens for the higher magnifications, I just standardized using a reversed lens.

Understood. Thanks.
chris

AgX · Jul 23, 2019

swchris said:
If you copy the slides in 1:1 size, does it make sense / is it better to reverse mount the lens? In my naive understanding when making 1:1 pictures it shouldn't matter if the lens is mounted normally or reversed. Or does it matter?

A lens is designed for a certain relation between object/lens and lens/film distances. (A standard lens is designed for the object/lens distance to be much bigger than the other.)
In general the moment your set-up for image scale turns around that relation a lens should be twisted. However depending on the optical design a lens is more or is less affected by that. For an absolutely symmetric lens it would not even matter at all.

As I indicated even some macro lenses are optimized for an image scale range that excludes 1/1.

Dan Fromm · Jul 23, 2019

narsuitus said:
I never found the need to use a double cable release when shooting macro with my Nikon bodies.

F-mount lenses in focusing mounts have automatic diaphragms. When the lens is mounted on a camera and the shutter release is pushed, a linkage allows the lens to stop down to shooting aperture. The PB-4 doesn't have a stop down linkage. That's why a BR-2 with double cable release makes shooting easier.

narsuitus · Jul 23, 2019

Dan Fromm said:
That's why a BR-2 with double cable release makes shooting easier.

I think I understand how using a double cable release can make shooting easier. However, manually stopping the lens down to the desired f/stop was never a problem for me.

Dan Fromm · Jul 23, 2019

narsuitus said:
I think I understand how using a double cable release can make shooting easier. However, manually stopping the lens down to the desired f/stop was never a problem for me.

It was for me, but that's because I was shooting mobile subjects. Still lifes are much less demanding.

swchris · Jul 23, 2019

AgX said:
A lens is designed for a certain relation between object/lens and lens/film distances. (A standard lens is designed for the object/lens distance to be much bigger than the other.)
In general the moment your set-up for image scale turns around that relation a lens should be twisted. However depending on the optical design a lens is more or is less affected by that. For an absolutely symmetric lens it would not even matter at all.

As I indicated even some macro lenses are optimized for an image scale range that excludes 1/1.

I assumed that the distances subject-to-optical-center and optical-center-to-film are the same at 1:1. But, rethinking, that might not be the case.

Jim Jones · Jul 23, 2019

Fast lenses like a Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 don't perform nearly as well when used as macro lenses as do the fine Micro-Nikkors. Long ago I had a short mount preset 135mm Vivitar in Nikon mount that was a delight for close-ups on a bellows from infinity to 1:1.

narsuitus · Jul 23, 2019

Dan Fromm said:
It was for me, but that's because I was shooting mobile subjects. Still lifes are much less demanding.

Thanks for the clarification. I now understand why shooting mobile macro subjects would need a double cable release. I had macro lenses that could handle moving subjects up to a 1:1 ratio. All my macro subjects (reproduction ratio higher than 1:1) were stationary subjects.

Out of curiosity, other than insects, what mobile macro subjects did you shoot?

AgX · Jul 23, 2019

swchris said:
I assumed that the distances subject-to-optical-center and optical-center-to-film are the same at 1:1.

You are perfectly right (for a standard lens at least).
But I wanted to give a more general answer, as the image scale of 1/1 is just one of countless imaging scales.

Dan Fromm · Jul 23, 2019

narsuitus said:
Thanks for the clarification. I now understand why shooting mobile macro subjects would need a double cable release. I had macro lenses that could handle moving subjects up to a 1:1 ratio. All my macro subjects (reproduction ratio higher than 1:1) were stationary subjects.

Out of curiosity, other than insects, what mobile macro subjects did you shoot?

Fair question. Live fish in aquaria. Reptiles and amphibians. Flowers. I did much better shooting flowers with a Nikon and MicroNikkor mounted on the body, flash illumination, than with my 2x3 Graphics, flash illumination. You'd think that flowers would sit still but out-of-doors there's always wind.

Now that I think of it, you'd do well to use an E-2 ring. Press to open lens, release to stop down to shooting aperture. Turning the aperture ring to stop down risks shifting the point of aim slightly.

mshchem · Jul 23, 2019

Jon Shumpert said:
I was trying to see if there were any videos on PB-4 bellows and surprisingly found none. I am thinking of getting a double cable release, but need to research which ones would work. I will be using it with a Nikon F2, F3 and Df which all have threaded cable release sockets.

You will have a lot of fun. There's nothing cooler. The knobs are works of art.

Nikon PB-4 bellows

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