L-bracket for Fujifilm X-T5

In a recent blog post, I said …

l use Arca Swiss L-brackets for all of my cameras. Good L-brackets are designed so the bracket doesn’t block any camera doors or ports. But I don’t have one for the [Fujifilm] X-T5 because it’s new enough that the selection of compatible L-brackets is poor. Source Credit: Walter Sanford, Comedy of Errors.

My urgent need for an L-bracket trumped my anxiety about ordering one from AliExpress in China. I decided to buy an L-bracket for my X-T5 from the “GoGlory Store.” US $27.55 plus free shipping helped to incentivize me. I placed my order on 12 March 2023; it was delivered on 20 March. Shipment from China to the east coast of the United States in eight (8) days was a pleasant surprise!

The L-bracket is well-made and fits my Fujifilm X-T5 perfectly without extending the vertical rail (as shown in the top photo, below).

Photo Credit: “GoGlory Store.”

The bracket comes with two Allen wrenches: a larger wrench (shown above); and a smaller one. The “GoGlory Store” Web page says the Allen wrenches are magnetic; they aren’t. Look closely at the full-size version of the preceding photos. Notice two small silver circles on the bottom of the horizontal rail — those are magnets in a groove that fits the larger Allen wrench.

The larger wrench is used to tighten/un-tighten a larger bolt that connects the L-bracket to the 1/4″-20 threaded tripod socket of your camera. The same bolt has a groove for a flat-head screwdriver.

The larger Allen wrench is also used to tighten/un-tighten a slightly smaller bolt that enables you to extend/contract the length of the L-bracket. That bolt does not have a groove for a screwdriver.

The smaller Allen wrench is used for two small bolts that enable you to remove the vertical rail completely.

Battery-chamber door

The following photo shows the L-bracket mounted on my Fujifilm X-T5; the opening in the horizontal rail enables the camera battery-chamber door to open/close freely without removing the L-bracket.

L-bracket, showing opening for camera battery-chamber door.

Camera Connectors (side doors)

The next photo shows the vertical rail of the L-bracket and the left side of my camera. The large cut-out in the L-bracket enables easy access to two small doors on the left side of the camera, and doesn’t block the built-in speaker. Both doors to the camera connectors are open in the following photo.

L-bracket, showing cut-out for camera connectors (side doors).

The vertical rail features four 1/4″-20 threaded sockets (taps) for mounting camera accessories.

What are the take-aways?

During limited testing, I am completely satisfied with the L-bracket I bought from AliExpress. Really, how often do you hear me say that about camera gear? A well-made product that does what it’s supposed to do, all for a good price plus free shipping — what’s not to like?

Copyright © 2023 Walter Sanford. All rights reserved.

Making progress (on a steep learning curve)

OK, let me say right at the outset that using a manual focus rail like my new-ish NiSi NM-200 to create a 328-photo focus stack is insane! So I regrouped, made a new plan, and conducted some tests.

I discovered, albeit too late, that I needed to shoot a lot of  photos for my last focus stack because I chose to use an aperture of f/8 and the “safe step size” for f/8 (at 1x magnification) is 40 µm (micrometers, or microns) — a relatively small step size.

In contrast, at 1x magnification the safe step size for f/11 is 800 µm — during limited testing that seems to be the sweet spot for creating focus stacks that look fairly good using fewer photos.

Canon EOD 5D Mark II DSLR camera plus Canon EF 100mm macro lens (1x, f/11)

The following composite image was created from 20 photos.

The background is the non-reflective side of a piece of black plastic. It’s textured surface appears to be a bad fit for macro photography — notice lots of little white specks on the background. Not good.

f/11 | 1/200 s | ISO 100 | Manual WB (Flash)

But wait, there’s one more thing. Did you notice the copper penny hiding underneath the quarter? Well, it was supposed to be hiding. I borrowed the idea from another photographer whose name I can’t remember. The point is to create some visual relief for the coin in the photo. The plan might have turned out OK if I’d noticed the misalignment of the penny before I did the focus bracketing.

Fujifilm X-T5 mirrorless digital camera plus Fujinon 80mm macro lens (1x, f/11)

The following composite image was created from 26 photos.

For the background, I used the white reference card from a Vello White Balance Card Set (Small). I set the white balance for AUTO WHITE PRIORITY WBW — a new setting (at least new to me) that’s supposed to result in whiter whites.

f/11 | 1/250 s | ISO 125 | WBW

The subject is in focus from back-to-front, and I like the white background. I think this is the best composite image I’ve created so far, but as always, you be the judge.

Fujifilm X-T5 mirrorless digital camera plus Fujinon 80mm macro lens (1x, f/11)

The following composite image was created from 21 photos.

For the background, I used the black reference card from a Vello White Balance Card Set (Small). I think it looks better than the textured black plastic background in the first photo, although I think the white background looks best.

f/11 | 1/250 s | ISO 125 | WBW

Pixel-peepers will notice the far end of the nickel isn’t as sharp as the rest of the coin. That’s because a man-caused disaster forced me to leave out the first two photos in the set. I hope the man responsible for this sloppy work will be held accountable for his actions!

Tech Tips

I think it’s worth noting that all three composite images were created using unedited JPGs straight out of the camera. All of the composite images could have been improved by making a few edits to the RAW files such as adjusting exposure, increasing contrast, and adding a little sharpening, to name a few.

In these test cases, I was looking for focus banding caused by using a step size that’s too big and glitches caused by Helicon Focus, the focus stacking software I used. As far as I can see, no problems.

My NiSi NM-200 is mounted on a Manfrotto 405 3-Way, Geared Pan-and-Tilt Head. The camera line of sight was inclined at a 45° angle relative to the staging surface. That’s less important in this case and more important for an upcoming review of the NiSi NM-200 focus rail.

Both cameras were set for manual exposure. Both lenses were set for manual focus; the combination of manual focus and back-button [auto]focus gives me the best of both worlds.

I use single point focus nearly all the time. I moved the focus point to the farthest point of each subject, then used back-button focus to autofocus on the subject and shoot a photo. Without changing focus from the first photo, I used the focus rail to move across the subject from back-to-front in 800 µm increments (eight numbered increments on the NiSi larger adjustment knob), taking a photo at each step.

More light is required for proper exposure at f/11 than f/8. I used one Sunpak LED-160, one Godox TT685C external flash unit (plus Altura flash modifier), and one Godox MF-12 external flash to light the first subject (Virginia quarter). Two Sunpak-160s and two Godox TT685C external flash units (using Altura and Lastolite flash modifiers) were used to light the last two subjects (quarter and nickel coins).

Related Resources

• Zerene Stacker DOF Calculator
• Fujifilm Colors: Auto White vs Auto Ambience, by pal2tech (12:47)
• Helicon Focus – Quick Start on Mac OS, by HeliconSoft (2:20)

Copyright © 2023 Walter Sanford. All rights reserved.

Comedy of errors

My first big focus stack turned out to be a comedy of errors. Lots of little things, all of them avoidable, but the one that broke the stack was when the camera battery died approximately two-thirds of the way through the project.

My new Fujifilm X-T5 has a much larger battery than my Fujifilm X-T3 so I never imagined it wouldn’t last long enough to create the stack.

I might have been able to salvage the stack by changing the battery without removing the camera from the focus rail, but the Manfrotto quick release plate partially blocked the battery door. Doh!

l use Arca Swiss L-brackets for all of my cameras. Good L-brackets are designed so the bracket doesn’t block any camera doors or ports. But I don’t have one for the X-T5 because it’s new enough that the selection of compatible L-brackets is poor.

I have two ways to provide continuous power for the X-T5 but I couldn’t use them because the battery door was partially blocked. Double doh!

Making lemonade from lemons

Long story short I used Helicon Focus to stack all the photos up until the power failure and the results look fairly good, as shown below. Oh what might have been. Triple doh!

ISO 400 | 80mm | 0 ev | f/8 | 1/250 s

The preceding composite image was created from 192 of 328 photos. I used a safe step size of 50 µm (microns) between photos. Each JPG photo is ~13 MB, 7728 × 5152 pixels.

The coin is acceptably in focus from the top of the coin to a point about two-thirds of the way toward the bottom. Zoom in on the horse’s head and you should notice sharp focus is lost beginning below its eye.

The amount of detail in the composite image is astounding, as shown in the close-up of the upper-right quadrant.

Close-up, upper-right quadrant.

Related Resource: Post update on 11 April 2023.

Copyright © 2023 Walter Sanford. All rights reserved.

Focus bracketing and focus peaking

Focus peaking can be used to visualize areas of a photograph that are acceptably in focus. This can be especially helpful when creating focus stacked composite images.

I recorded two videos that show simulated focus bracketing using my NiSi NM-200 manual focus rail. Notice how the focus peaking band moved across the subject from back-to-front as the carriage moved along the lead screw of the focus rail. The videos aren’t rock steady because I was turning the larger adjustment knob as I was recording the HDMI output from two of my Fujifilm X Series digital cameras.

The subject in both videos is a quarter, that is, a 25-cent coin in U.S. currency. President Theodore Roosevelt is shown on one side of the coin.

The diameter of a quarter is 24.257 mm (0.955 inches). The APS-C sensor used in Fujifilm X Series digital cameras is 23.5 mm x 15.7 mm. A good indicator of the magnification is how much of the quarter is visible in the photo frame.

Fujiffilm X-T3 camera plus Laowa 25mm Ultra Macro lens

The following YouTube video shows a simulation of focus bracketing using a Fujiffilm X-T3 digital camera plus Laowa 25mm Ultra Macro lens. Focus peaking (shown in red) helps to highlight areas of the image that are acceptably in focus.

Video of Roosevelt quarter at 2.5x magnification using an aperture of f/4.

Fujiffilm X-T5 camera plus Fujinon 80mm macro lens

The next YouTube video shows a simulation of focus bracketing using a Fujiffilm X-T5 digital camera plus Fujinon 80mm macro lens. Focus peaking (shown in red) helps to highlight areas of the image that are acceptably in focus, same as in the preceding video. Although it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison, I set the lens aperture to f/4, like the X-T3/Laowa macro rig.

Video of Roosevelt quarter at 1x magnification using an aperture of f/4.

Safe step size and focus banding

After watching the preceding videos, I think it should be clear why macro photographers use focus bracketing to create focus stacked composite images that show more depth of field than is possible from a single photo.

Focus peaking helps to highlight areas of an image that are acceptably in focus. Focus banding occurs when there isn’t enough overlap between the areas that are in focus from one image to the next. This is why it’s critically important to calculate the safe step size BEFORE you begin a focus stacking project.

Tech Tips

The following YouTube video shows how to set my Fujifilm X Series cameras for “clean HDMI” video output. Sometimes it’s helpful to turn “ON” the info display, for example, when creating “how to” videos like this one. You can see my camera settings at the beginning and end of the video.

Video of Menu settings for “clean HDMI.”

A micro-HDMI cable was used to connect my cameras to a MacBook Air (13″, M1, 2020) laptop computer via an inexpensive HDMI Video Capture adapter (HDMI to USB). I used Apple QuickTime Player (free) to record the HDMI video output from my cameras.

Open Apple QuickTime Player. File / New Movie Recording. Click the down arrow disclosure button located to the right of the red Record button and make the following settings.

• Camera = USB Video [= HDMI adapter]
• Microphone = MacBook Air Microphone [for narration, voice over]
• Quality = Maximum [1920 x 1080p, 25 fps]

Movies are recorded as .mov files.

Related Resources

• BEST Fujifilm Manual Focus Setting! by pal2tech (6:01) – FOCUS PEAK HIGHLIGHT plus Fujifilm film simulations (“Acros” Black and White)
• Understanding Fujifilm Video Recording, by pal2tech (5:11)
• Fujifilm X-T3: Focus Peak Highlight – A blog post by Walter Sanford related to, well, focus peaking.
• What is it? – A blog post by Walter Sanford related to the HDMI Video Capture adapter used to create the videos featured in this post.

Copyright © 2023 Walter Sanford. All rights reserved.

 

Please stay tuned …

I’m working on a blog post that isn’t ready for publication. It should be finished sometime within the next day-or-so, so as the title says, please stay tuned.

Walter

How to measure magnification, revisited

The magnification of any macro photography rig can be determined by using the rig to photograph a metric ruler such as the one shown below.

Plastic 15 cm (6″) ruler from the Natl. Science Teachers Assn. (NSTA).

The following photograph was taken using a Laowa 25mm Ultra Macro lens mounted on my Fujifilm X-T3 digital camera. The lens was set for 2.5x magnification and an aperture of f/4, the “sweet spot” for this lens. Notice that only a small part of the ruler is shown in this “full frame” (uncropped) macro photo.

Segment of an NSTA metric ruler.

The formula for magnification is as follows.

length of camera sensor, in mm / #mm visible in photo frame

Both measurements must be expressed in the same units in order for the units to cancel during division.

The APS-C digital sensor featured in the Fujifilm X-T3 is 23.5 mm long. The annotated image shows ~9.0 mm of the small plastic ruler is visible in the photo frame.

23.5 mm / ~9.0 mm = ~2.6x

Is the actual magnification of the Laowa 25mm Ultra Macro lens slightly greater than 2.5x? I don’t know, but my calculation confirms the minimum magnification setting for the lens is in the neighborhood of 2.5x and that’s good enough for government work.

Photo Credit: Venus Optics.

What are the take-aways?

As a result of photographing the ruler, subject selection should be easier. Now I know ~9 mm is the size limit for subjects to fit entirely within the photo frame when the lens is set for 2.5x magnification. That’s actionable intel.

Related Resources

• How to Calculate Your Camera’s Magnification in Macro Photography, by Stewart Wood (12:02).
• How to measure magnification – a blog post by Walter Sanford that features instructions for using either Adobe Photoshop or Photopea to make measurements of photos.

Copyright © 2023 Walter Sanford. All rights reserved.