One thing to remember when looking for macro focussing rails is the amount of control you want or need.

My Pentax Macro focussing rail can only be controlled fore and aft, not side to side, and it has a maximum throw of 2.25 inches.

If you also need lateral movement, this rail is not for you. It is built like a tank and very well engineered but may not give you all the control you might need..

Oddly enough there was movement in my subject. The more developed larvae were wriggling about but it doesn't show in the result. In one series of images, (I took about 120 in total with different lenses )if I step through them, it appears as if there is a beating heart in the newly hatched larva (near the top of the image).

With other insects, I draw the line at chilling or freezing them, but if you catch them in the early morning after a cool/cold evening, they'll happily sit motionless for ages.

The Pentax rail is not easily controllable to be honest, especially with 2-3Kg of equipment hanging on it, vertically. In a more horizontal plane it would be perfectly controllable.

That said, it did the job. With gravity assist from the weight of the camera etc. it wasn't too bad moving the rig from top to bottom. Bottom to top is almost not possible because the weight of the rig I was using tended to be a 'tail wagging the dog' affair. The weight of the rig wanted to drive the rack and pinion rather than vice verse. The Pentax rail does have a variable clamp which acts as a good brake though.

The one problem you don't have with the Pentax rail is viewfinder accesibility. No part of the rail is behind the camera's rear screen so you can always see through the viewfinder.

CombineZM does all the work Greg. Helicon Focus is another programme that achieves the same result, but CombineZM is free.

It takes about 5 minutes or so to process 22 x 25Mb+ tif files.

Tutorial and links here.

Here's something I've been playing with today. It's a small wasp nest on one of my outdoor plants.

This image is made using Combine ZM and 22 .TIF files taken at different focus points.

The nest contains a mix of empty egg chambers, egg chambers under construction, eggs, nectar, and developing larvae. The egg chambers in the centre are about 1 - 1.5 cm deep.




Gear used: K20D, Sigma 1:3.5 180mm Macro EX DG , AF160FC, Pentax Macro focussing rail on Manfrotto tripod.
Software used: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.7, Combine ZM

Thanks Clarky, but I found them and edited my post above with correct info.

If the filters required are 22.5mm, mine are too big.

What size are the filters you are looking for? I have some screw in ones that might work. I'm not familiar with your lens so I don't know if they'll be OK.

They are for a Tokina 350mm mirror lens. They screw onto the rear element housing and are 35.5mm threaded.

I have a Skylight, NDX2, & NDX4, in a brown leatherette wallet, red velvet lined, complete with spanner/tool for screwing/unscrewing them.

The Arctic Butterfly from Visible Dust is about the best dry cleaning system I have ever used.

Pentax themselves can supply a wet cleaning system, which you can buy from this site, but I try to avoid wet cleaning if possible. It takes practice to get it really clean and smudge free. I haven't needed to wet clean my K20D in almost 2 years of ownership.

Careless use of the rocket blower can cause more damage than either of the two methods I describe above. Touch the sensor with the blower nozzle and you'll be left with a permanent mark on the sensor and possibly dust behind the focussing screen which can be difficult to get rid of, though its not strictly necessary because it will not appear in images.

You can use both the AF360FGZ and the AF540FGZ wirelessly and manual at the same time. Wireless provides the trigger, manual settings facilitate the creative control.

The maximum reliable distance of the Pentax wireless system is about 4 metres from wireless controller to slave. Radio triggers (Cactus V4) allow for a much greater range.

You can also use some of the Metz flashes which are compatible with the Pentax wireless system.

If you were to go the totally manual route, all you need is a flash of the power output you need and has an optical (dumb) slave setting. To control all your flashes in manual by wireless, you put a cheap non-p-ttl flash on the camera that has a tilt-able head, and point it at the ceiling to avoid it contributing very much light to the scene. Set your other AF360FGZ's to dumb slave mode and practice.