Modified DIY copy stand clamp.
My original DIY copy stand using plumbing pipe, a Manfrotto Super Clamp and a good ball head does a decent job, but was awkward to make fine adjustments to height and alignment.
No change to using the plumbing pipe and floor flange. This is sturdy, collapses easily for storage and works well.
It’s difficult, however, to move the Super Clamp up and down the pipe to precisely crop the film, where you want to be within 1-2 mm.
The other problem is that a ball head is not ideal for alignment because when you loosen it, all the axes change and it requires fiddling to get the alignment right.
My new design eliminates both the Super Clamp and ball head, instead using a small piece of plywood and some readily available hardware parts. The Novaflex Castel-L is wonderful to have, but there are much cheaper options available that would work fine. In a simple setup you can slide an Arca-Swiss plate vertically in its clamp to easily get the exact cropping needed.
Rather than using a leveling base for aligning the camera pitch to the film I opted to use a 5/16" bolt, with a T-nut hammered into the plywood. This way I can loosen the top 1/4" wing nuts on the upper U-bolt, screw in the 5/16" bolt until the alignment is correct, then tighten the 1/4" wing nuts.
The camera yaw is easily adjusted by loosening up the 3/8" eye bolt and rotating the wood spacer and Novaflex.
