Adjustment slide
An adjustment slide is used in photography when precise fine adjustment is required. The camera can thus be moved along the optical axis for static recordings. If two setting slides are mounted at right angles to each other, a cross slide is created with which the camera can also be moved precisely across the optical axis. Areas of application for setting slides are macro photography , possibly in connection with focus stacking , and panorama photography .
The setting slide consists of two plates that are connected to one another via a guide and an adjusting spindle. The plates can be moved against each other using the setting spindle and the camera can be positioned in the tenths of a millimeter. The adjustment path is more than 100 mm on many slides, which is why there is also a mechanism for rough adjustment. An adjustment slide has a tripod thread and a tripod screw and is mounted between the camera and the tripod.
Adjustment slides are mainly used in macro photography. The depth of field is only a few millimeters at close range. The precise positioning of the camera in front of the subject by moving the tripod and the automatic or manual focusing on the lens are only very imprecise due to the small distance between the camera lens and the subject to be photographed and the shallow depth of field. This problem is solved by means of an adjustment slide, in that both the distance between the camera and the subject and the area shown in focus in the image are fixed by shifting along the optical axis. The bellows devices used in macro photography are therefore often manufactured in combination with an adjustment slide.
Panoramic photography is another area of application for setting slides. In order to be able to take pictures without parallax errors , the entry pupil of the lens (very often incorrectly referred to as the node or nodal point ) must be exactly above the pivot point of the tripod. This requires the camera to be shifted along the optical axis, usually to the rear, which can be carried out with an adjustment slide.