Oben MFR4-5 Macro Focusing Rail

I wanted a sturdy and dependable Macro Rail with precision. The pricing on this unit was very affordable when compared to the higher priced units available. It offered me precision because of the worm screws that advanced the camera forward or backward and side to side using their rubberized knobs. It lacked a measurement gauge on either the rails or the knobs so you had a reference but I created a gauge easily for repeatability and I was very happy with the fit and finish of the black coated aluminum finish. The Arca Swiss camera mount is very handy for setup. This is used for a lot of focus stacking projects and works great.

This is very nice (structural parts are aluminum, some plastic covers). It has nice knobs driving threaded shafts for both left-right and forward-backward movement (the drive ratio is 4mm per revolution per a question answered here; that contrasts with 1.25mm per revolution on some that cost 5 to 10 times as much). Everything "feels good", it's a pleasure to work with. I haven't experienced "creeping" from steep angles, but I note the lack of a locking mechanism on the forward-backward direction especially.The camera plate (with Arca Swiss rail on the bottom) that is intended to go on the bottom of the camera (it ships in the grip of the screw clamp on the end of the forward-backward mechanism) is nicely built, and fits my various other clamps (mostly Really Right Stuff) just fine.Since my cameras have RRS rails on them, I don't need it for that. However, my tripods also have RRS clamps on them, so I needed it on the *other* end.The other end is set up for screw mounting directly to the tripod or head. It has two close-by 3/8 sockets with 1/4" bushings. I found that attaching the Oben clamp plate to that worked fine. I did have to do one thing -- there are two cylindrical silver stops to keep from sliding out of narrow clamps on this bit. They are too close together for my big tripod head clamp. But they just unscrew (hex key, obvious place).This isn't as sturdy or as precise as the $650 equivalent from Really Right Stuff. I refuse to *lead* the review with that, though. It supports an Oly EM-1 Mk II and Oly 60mm/2.8 macro lens quite solidly and lets me adjust them precisely enough for my work; I'm working more in the 1:4 to 1:2 range with only moderate forays out towards 1:1. You can get "macro lenses" for DSLR (or mirrorless) cameras that do 5:1 or higher magnification these days and maybe (I don't work in that range) the 4mm per revolution travel might be a problem. For *my* use so far the adjustments are entirely good enough.

Some one asked to compare this rail with Neewer Pro. Well, there is no comparison. The Neewer is worth $24.00 and this one is worth way more than $129.00 that I paid. It is first class construction and quality, precision. I just mounted my Nikon+300mm lens+tc 0.4 on tripod and I tilled it looking down at 45 degree. I can move the whole setup down and up, left and right with ease. One more: the rail to move left and right is shorter. It can more up to 3 cm as compared with 6 cm it can move front and back or up and down. I think this is very cleaver since we move left and right not much. If you look at other, some very expensive ones, you don't even have left and right rail.

There is a vast amount of slop in the screw mechanism. I got by using it for macro photography for about 3 months. But it was so frustrating that I ended up replacing it with the iShoot 150mm focus rail. It is much better quality and I recommend it rather than this Oben model.Also, it says that it is all metal but it is in fact part plastic.

I had to retrun it. It is extremely difficult to use, rather clumsy

If you don't need a whole lot of precision this thing would qualify as a seemingly well-built, solid-feeling simple 2-axis slider with a useful geometry that works with most lens and camera combos. But the thing is, if you DO need precision for the movement along the focus axis in for example a microscopy focus stack, then this thing falls apart. Turning the knob feels mushy with uneven engagement. There is complete disengagement or slack for a good portion of each turn, with appears to be movement of up to a millimeter along the rail happening in the space of less than 60 angular degrees. This makes it impossible to schedule a focus stack with so many degrees of knob rotation per exposure. Disassembly of the slider mechanism reveals that the gearbox connecting the knob to the slider action along the threaded rod is a poorly manufactured plastic part, not made of metal.

A 5 star is the best, and this is for the sourceCoerced further written replies is a pain in the ass. It should be on a voluntary basis and this portion is for Amazon.

This is great. Incremental shifts front, back, left & right using two separate knobs. One is front/back the other is left/right.Put this on a tripod that is sturdy, place your marcro lens onto your camera body, stop the lens down and set the tripod close to the subject.Very nice product. I do recommend having a separate tripod for this head, or keeping a nice sturdy set of pliers on hand to swap this out with your ballhead / video head. The screw base with threaded bolt is hard to remove when swapping this head out.