Is a macro rail worth it?

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Will H

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With Christmas around the corner I'm obviously spending plenty of time wondering how best to expand my kit. :D

Now I like my macro photography a lot and am wondering how to develop it beyond just pointing the camera at a bug. Having seen some incredibly impressive things on Flickr recently, I'm thinking that experimenting with focus stacking in particular would be a good direction to move in which has got me thinking about the kit I'd need for this.

Would something like this (it's a double axis macro rail from Redsnapper) be a sensible purchase? Is the 2 axis overkill?

Obviously, even though it'll be a gift, so ultimately I don't really care about how much it costs, that's a fair amount of money which could be used to fill gaps in other areas of my kit, so what I really want to know is how much those who have experience in these areas actually think I'll use it as I'm not entirely convinced that it's not one of those things that seems like an excellent idea in my mind, but will ultimately spend most of it's time sitting in my bag....
 
There are similar devices that do the same job to be had off ebay for around £30 or less. I have one myself, I have no complaints, and it's identical to others costing much more. If you find it's not up to the job, or you don't use it enough, it's no great loss and somebody here will always have it off you.
 
I have one of the ones from ebay for £30, worked spot on. I think the price of the one your named may be a bit over kill, unless you can justify that amount through the work you do, e.g. sales of pictures etc.

It has come in extremely handy for a few of my pictures, but it soon got left in the bag as it was quite limiting on what you can use it with.

Here is one I used it for, I had macro lens with a full stack of kenko tubes, the DOF was tiny tiny tiny to actually get a decent reflection in the ball. without the macro rail I couldnt have got it.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/robbo1985/4327232747/in/set-72157623341975166/
 
I've got to say, £30 seems a fair price to enable shots like that. Unfortunately, £30 only buys the rail, then you need the idea.
 
I asked a very similar question a few weeks ago and ended up going with the redsnapper focussing rails (about £100). I have to say that I am very pleased with them - well made and seem good value. I havent got round to using them much yet, but the couple of stacks I have done have worked well.
 
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