• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

MAX DSLR DIY alternative (1 Viewer)

Musoman

Musoman

PETE - Nikon/Sony Shooter
United Kingdom
Scope n Skies seem to be out of stock of any MAX DSLR mounts, and since i have no clue when they'll be in stock, i I am going to make one out of an old broken Sigma Nikon AF mount lens

There's plenty of room on the reverse side to epoxy ( or drill + screw and epoxy to be safe ) some 2" alloy tubing. I have a 200mm length already in the post, outside diameter 50.08 mm .....scope focus tube inside diameter 50.08 mm ...could be a tight fit !!

But, would you guys remove the sigma AF chip ? I presume these factory chipped lenses are programmed for that particular lens - in this case, its a Sigma 28-70mm, and i assume its useless to leave it where it is, on a 700mm scope ?
 
On a side note, there appears to be zero programmable Focus Confirm chips for Nikon on Ebay right now. Strange

I even searched for the members who regularly sold them .. jinfinance and James Lao. Jinfinance doesnt have any for sale, and James Lao appears to have gone from Ebay

Other searches revealed quite a few Canon chips, and loads of Nikon to Canon chipped adapters, but nothing in the way of a Nikon glue on FC chip
 
Will do Paul - thanks. He was one of the others i searched on Ebay, but wasn't aware he'd sold some that recently.

I'm close to making my own mount with 2" extension, but if he comes up trumps on Ebay first, it'll save me the hassle and i'll just get one off him
 
I didnt see them Paul, but when you consider the mount i stole off the broken lens was free, and the 2" tube is only £8, i'm kinda thinking its not worth paying over the odds.

The other thing is, the £8 alloy tube is 250mm long, so i can cut that down to any length i want, and do away with the need for any more extension tubes, which i'd have to pay for on top of
a MAX dslr arrangement
 
Last edited:
Excellent - cant think why they dont show up on UK Ebay, though, as any seller who lists items willing to sell anywhere in the world should have shown up in the UK .. Spooky

Does anyone here who uses Nikon bodies actually use a Nikon chip on their scope mount ? I'm wondering if the benefit is worth the price. I'm wondering how accurate NON CPU lens data in the menu system is for fully manual lenses, and if its fairly accurate ( assuming the data is used for metering and not just for EXIF ) maybe there's no need for a chip ?
 
I use one on my Nikon body (D3300) and it works very well for metering, plus that's the only reason I purchased it. There's a lot of times though when I don't use the chip because I have so many TC's and I only have the one chip. I'm happy enough to guess the shutter speed and it's usually right. My chip is glued into my T-ring but I think I shall mount it into a very thin macro tube. At least then I can use it on all types of magnification that I use on the scope.

Paul.
 
So your Canon 450D finally blew up ? ;)

Doesnt Non Cpu lens data deal with metering for manual lenses ? I dont know if the 3300 has the option to enter manual lens data ( FL and Aperture ) but my D300 does - not exactly sure what it achieves though.
 
Yep, the shutter gave up on the 450D, I used it almost always in burst mode and would rack up several hundred photos per day. I'll be a bit more careful from now on and just use single shutter most of the time. There's no option to enter in lens data on the D3300.

Paul.
 
The 2" alloy tube to fix onto the Nikon mount should be here in a day or so..

Just a thought - would you guys remove the chip ? Also the black plastic central section can be removed as well, would you also take that off ?
 

Attachments

  • Nik mount.jpg
    Nik mount.jpg
    150.5 KB · Views: 139
The DIY extension tube & mount are with my pal who is an engineer that works from home. He has a milling machine and a lather in his shed, and is doing the work for free.

The alloy tube has been machined and a collar press fitted over the mount end, as this is the end that goes onto the Nikon mount i robbed off a Sigma lens. The collar was needed because the tube was a smaller diameter than the mount, and we wanted it fitting tightly around the lip of the mount. So now its just a matter of drilling and tapping for 4 M2 x 12mm countersunk machine screws to fix the the tube to the mount. The screws will go into the collar that was press fitted on.

I'll show the pix when i get it back. The screws had to be bought off ebay ( £1.50 ) and free postage. I guess it'll take a few days for delivery and then for my pal to drill and tap the necessary holes
 
Screws taken to my engineer pal today, who will attempt some engineering skulduggery and voodoo, and get it all tight and secure.

He suddenly got busy with work, so its still going to be a couple of days before i get the whole thing back.

I left the ext. tube @ 200mm, cutting off 50mm, and this will help with close focusing, with half of the tube ( 100mm ) still inside the focuser tube and helping to stop any minor drooping of the camera, assuming about 100mm of extension tube showing gets quite close focus
 
Warning! This thread is more than 10 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Similar threads

B
Attaching a Red Dot Finder OVER a stay-on spotting scope case
Replies
1
Views
1K
Mike Crawley
Mike Crawley
Andonso
Teleconverter ?
2
Replies
33
Views
7K
Dave Williams
D
B
Shoulder Stock for Nikon ED50 Angled Spotting Scope
Replies
3
Views
5K
Hauksen
H
N
Maven B2 9x45's vs a few others (adhoc review)
Replies
19
Views
11K
Tahoe1305
T
G
Hawke Frontier ED 8x42 Binocular Blow-Out reduced to only $179.99
Replies
0
Views
657
gr8fuldoug
G

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 2 (members: 0, guests: 2)
Back
Top