Crazy: Minolta/Sony Alpha AF Bellows by Novoflex!
I don’t know how many of you knew that Novoflex made a dual track rack and pinion AF bellows for Sony/Minolta camera and lenses! I found one of those for sale on eBay (Click here). It has all the electrical contacts for the automation of the camera/lens/bellows system. The description says: “It’s a great accessory for close-up, macro, stereographic, and panoramic photography. It’s also perfectly suited for slide/negative & photo copying. It excels in hand-held indoor/outdoor, nature and macro photography, due to it’s automation, compact size and light weight. Other non auto bellows are generally too bulky and heavy for hand-held use. The precise rack and pinion gear allows very minute fore and aft movement of your camera for very accurate framing focusing. It will not slip when pointed up or down. It has a very secure locking mechanism. It can accommodate heavy lenses. It is of all metal construction, steel and aluminum.”
Novofles is a German company well known for their high quality adapters. But I didn’t know they make bellows too!
Click here to see the current Novoflex bellow auction on eBay.
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Comment from Jerome M.: Do you want to compare Sony Minolta prod...
Comment from sgts: Thanks for the info, I know its a large ...
Comment from Matthias: With a shift/tilt bellows you would loos...
Comment from RB: It seems that the younger folks don't kn...
hanugro
12 months ago |Is it just a flexible extension tube?
Shot by scott
12 months ago |I’ve had a set for about 10 years. Andy they are a fantastic accessory. I didn’t know they still made them, but when I got mine it cost 500DM (250€)…. That said I haven’t used them for a while as back in the day macro lenses weren’t as good as they are today.
Adam Maas
12 months ago |I don’t know why you’d say that older Macro lenses aren’t as good as modern ones because it simply isn’t true. Both of Sony’s current models are older designs and still excellent (the 50/2.8 dates to the mid-1990′s, the 100′s older) and many of the best Macro designs date to the 70′s and 80′s. To this day the best 35mm Macro lens (the Leica APO-<akro-Elmarit 100mm f2.8) dates to the early 1990's. Aside from the new Zeiss 100/2 Makro-Planar or the now discontinued Voigtlander 125/2.5 APO Macro (the only two stellar Macro designs that are post-1990's aside from the $4K+ Coastal Optics stuff) all of the really good macro options are older lenses from the 70's, 80's and 90's.
jg
12 months ago |I had my first Novoflex bellows some 40 years ago. They make all kind of photographic tools and generally for a large range of excisting and past mounts. In the past, they also made telelenses for pistol-grip and macro lenses.
To clear things up: There is no AF possibility with this bellows – only manual operation. The automation of the bellows refers only to the aperture.
Hardly any news fit to print, was it, Andrea
RTI
12 months ago |Seems like SAR lacks the actual rumors… these kind extension tubes aren’t by any means new, or news… There are even the Chinese versions available on dealextreme
admin
12 months ago |Lack of rumors??? Did you see how many we posted in this weeks? And more are ocming today.
Matthias
12 months ago |Actually, macro equipment and follow focus lenses have been Novoflex’s core business for the past sixty years or so…
BALMIN-AF, the A-mount version of their auto bellows, is available for more than two decades now, although it became a special order item in recent years (due to the neclectible demand since Minolta’s demise).
Pictured is the original version of the bellows with four holes on the front. For some odd reasons, though otherwise using the same construction, some later versions featured three holes on the front only, rendering them mechanically incompatible with some older Novoflex macro equipment – Novoflex bellows have been part of a huge and versatile system of accessories. Recent BALMIN-AF versions have blue knobs and bellows instead of the black ones. All variants feature five lens contacts, only. This is important to know, because some (not fully A-mount compatible) third-party lenses with eight pins won’t work on the bellows (Tamron 90mm Di is one of them), while all 100% A-mount compatible lenses should continue to work even if only 5 of the 8 signals are used. And, perhaps, it should be pointed out, that while this is an auto-aperture bellows, it is not an auto-focus bellows.
If you intend to buy one on the used market, make sure the flex-board isn’t cracked. Many of them are, unfortunately. If so, the camera won’t reliably recognize the lens any more once the bellows gets extended. It’s possible for Novoflex to repair the bellows, but it isn’t exactly cheap.
Greetings,
Matthias
RTI
12 months ago |Andrea, don’t get me wrong, I guess I read every rumor on this site, but such posts don’t carry any value, other then advertising some ebay links…
admin
12 months ago |I have no problem with critics. I really never saw that Novoflex product. I thought it would be interesting. if for the majority it’s not than sorry. My intention was good. Skip that news and follow the next rumros I am going to post soon
Irfan
12 months ago |forget about whiners. I didn’t see it before. Any update is better than no update to the site.
RB
12 months ago |It seems that the younger folks don’t know anymore about the glorious times of German camera buisness and in particular advanced camera gear.
As Matthias has pointed out, Novoflex is in business for more than 60 years, and they are famous for their bellows (one of their first own products) since 1950 and their fast-shooting lenses (in the times before auto-focus was invented).
In other words: If you are looking for bellows, for whatever camera in whatever format, you have the choice between Novoflex, Novoflex, and Novoflex…
Andrea, you could introduce a new section: “Beyond consumer photos: Advanced camera gear and how to use it”
Harv
12 months ago |I modified a non-auto bellows; on a Alpha camera with live-view you always get a decent picture, whatever the aperture is. Maybe the SLT’s will bring an even better image for focusing etc. As a macro-lens I use some Componon-S enlargement lenses: superb at close distance and VERY affordable now everyone is getting rid of their dark room equipment.
Daemonius
12 months ago |They do more than adapters and bellows, just check their website. Tripods and such.. Decent quality on everything.
snrvl2
12 months ago |Novoflex made bellows in a lot of variations, both under their own brand for several camera makes like the one shown or dedicated models for Rollei. Leica and Hasselblad.
i own a Minolta AF like shown and i am more then pleased with it.
this type of bellows actually is more then just a variable extension ring. it also doubles as a focusing rail which is very handy indeed if you work with a tripod because you can easily move the camera back and forth without changing the chosen magnification factor.
you can also attach various older Novoflex gear to it like a slide copier, a compendium or a macro stand.
Matthias
12 months ago |I’d like to add that Novoflex has been the manufacturer of some of Minolta’s early macro bellows for the SR-mount, as far as I know including the Minolta Bellows I and II, the Minolta Auto Bellows I and II, and some accessories.
The much different Minolta (Auto) Bellows II and IV for the SR-mount seem to originate elsewhere, however, Novoflex also developed various other macro bellows for Minolta’s SR-mount under their own name, including the BALMIN-AS, which is the equivalent of the above mentioned BALMIN-AF, but for the SR-mount.
Greetings,
Matthias
Jonas
12 months ago |Well done for this post, it may not be a rumour, but it is clearly broadening the education of some readers.
Novoflex may be quite a small company but are a very useful one, and perhaps becoming more so as even Nikon are cutting back on some of the more specialist items.
Not only have they helped many a close up photographer over the years, but were even a force in sports photography years ago (pre AF and fast ED tele days) with their pistol grip follow focus lenses.
sgts
12 months ago |focus ? if this could tilt the front end down, you would have total depth of field across the entire image.
I don’t know why they don’t make them tilt.
Matthias
12 months ago |With a shift/tilt bellows you would loose auto-aperture – well, not much of an issue in macro photography, but auto-aperture was a design goal for the BALMIN-AS and BALMIN-AF.
As has been pointed out already, Novoflex also offers a shift/tilt bellows named BALPRO-T/S:
http://www.novoflex.com/en/products/macro-accessories/bellows-systems/tilt-shift-bellows/
This bellows can be adapted to most any mount past or present.
However, for 24x36mm I would recommend the Minolta Auto Bellows IV, a versatile shift/tilt bellows for Minolta’s SR-mount. Since you loose auto-aperture anyway, you can use a glass-less A-mount to SR-mount adapter to attach this bellows to A-mount cameras and take advantage of SR-mount macro lenses or adapt to other mounts such as RMS.
(With no lens detected, older Minolta A-mount bodies such as the 9000AF moved the bayonet aperture ring to the fully closed position when stopping down or releasing the shutter. Using a self-made adapter this can be used to close the aperture of a pre-set aperture macro lens to the pre-set value during exposure. Unfortunately, recent bodies don’t move the aperture lever without a lens detected, so this trick doesn’t work any longer – and so far Sony has ignored multiple requests to at least make this behaviour customizable.)
Greetings,
Matthias
snrvl2
12 months ago |a tilting bellows for 35 mm or ff does not bring much in terms of DOF – you go from hardly any to a bit more but still hardly any. that is why Novoflex did not make tilting bellows in the past.
they now offer a T/S bellows that can be used with camera’s up to 6×7. it may also be used with 35 mm or ff camera’s butstill the above applies.
if you really want the DOF tilting can bring you need a bigger format like a view camera
sgts
12 months ago |Thanks for the info, I know its a large format thing but 35mm sensors are capable of holding more and more info. I have a specific project that needs the whole area to be in focus.
Jerome M.
2 months ago |Do you want to compare Sony Minolta products to the other competition ?
Have a look here :
http://www.photoexposition.fr/slr-dslr-reflex/