Pentax Bellows II or Auto Bellows for slide copy?

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

I have a slight quandary right now. I want to buy a bellows set with slide copier to copy some colour slides I have onto B&W film (in order to print on paper).

I'm using a Spotmatic, and my macro lens is the SMC Macro-Takumar 50mm f/4, but I can't figure out whether I should get the Bellows II unit or the Auto Bellows unit. The only thing I can see that distinguish them is that the Auto bellows can close auto diaphragm lenses, while the II has two tracks instead of one.

Does it matter at all? Also, I've read somewhere that the extra pin of the SMC lens could cause some troubles on certain bellows. Any knowledge of this?

[David Brown]

I have the bellows II (and the macro-Tak). When using bellows, it's not that much trouble to manually stop down the lens. The large format guys do it all the time.

Don't know about the pin problem, but the auto bellows always seemed to me just a bit gimmicky. I could be wrong.

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

Yes, I wasn't terribly sold to the idea of automatic diaphragm control for my purposes. I guess it could matter more for people doing macro shots of insects or other moving things. Come to think of it, perhaps the pin thing was related to the auto mechanism.