Unusual Wild Heerbrugg Makrozoom setup

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Scarodactyl
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Unusual Wild Heerbrugg Makrozoom setup

Post by Scarodactyl »

Hello everyone,
I've been thinking about expanding my photomicroscopic capabilities recently, and the Wild photomacroscopes have been strongly recommended by a few enthusiasts online. I've had trouble fitting a full M420 into my budget, but I came across this odd piece on eBay and they accepted my lowball offer on it:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Wild-Heerbrugg ... 2910685966
It's a makrozoom lens which looks to be set up like an industrial zoom lens, probably with a cctv attached? Someone was selling a similar setup here a few months back. It's on what I guess is a motorized focus mount?
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The good: the zoom mechanism turns smoothly, and I can resolve a (tiny) image through it by holding it over a surface freehand.

The bad: there is definitely something on one of the internal lenses. I am hoping it is not mold. It doesn't appear hazy anyway, so there is that.

Basically, I'm hoping that I can get it cleaned, hook a camera up and maybe even adapt a controller to the motor. Heck, if I can find a compatible trinocular head I'd be glad to make the full package. As long as the internal optics aren't roached I think it will be a pretty fun project.
Last edited by Scarodactyl on Sat Jul 14, 2018 5:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

ray_parkhurst
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Post by ray_parkhurst »

Wow, that's a neat piece of equipment. I'll need to do some research on it to see its capabilities.

enricosavazzi
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Post by enricosavazzi »

The Wild/Leitz/Leica Makrozoom objectives have a good resolution, but unfortunately suffer from some axial chromatic aberration. This is largely invisible if these objectives are used for stacking, but evident especially when using the macroscope for visual observation.

The box at the front of the lens is not part of the lens in its standard configuration. It might be a beam splitter for coaxial illumination. It should be possible to remove it and gain a couple of cm of working distance. If the beam splitter is of the cube prism type, removing it may improve IQ, since these objectives are not designed to have a thick block of glass at their front. In standard configuration, these macroscopes can use a beam splitter at the rear of the lens to achieve axial illumination.

The block at the rear of the zoom, with attached cable, could be an electromechanical shutter or diaphragm. It is not part of the usual lens configuration, either.
--ES

Scarodactyl
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Post by Scarodactyl »

Thanks! Yes, I had seen your posts on that subject, though I'm glad to hear that stacking should make it less of a problem. I use my sz7 for visual observation, so this setup would be exclusively for taking photos. I really appreciate the notes on those attachments. I've been told I need to take it apart to clean off the dirt/mold anyway, so I guess I will just not put those parts back on.
That would make sense--the only reason I thought it might be for focusing is that it does have a focus track on it with no visible means of moving the lens up or down. I thought it was odd that I'd never seen that part on any wild microscope or macroscope, but it looks awfully well fitted.

Lou Jost
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Post by Lou Jost »

I almost bought one of those a few weeks ago on eBay as well. I ended up chickening out, too many unknowns. It will be interesting to see what you do with this! I hope it works well for you.

Scarodactyl
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Post by Scarodactyl »

It's been a while since I gave an update on this--I've sort of been stalled on it because of the difficulty of fitting it to a base and my own uncertainty about completely dissassembling the mount, and since I also got a (mostly) complete m420 on a good deal I've been focused on that as well. But from having had to remove the makrozoom objective on the M420 to access the focus rack I realized that I could also easily remove the objective from this setup without having to disassemble anything else, hoping to find the optical issue and see how hard it's going to be to deal with. So I unscrewed the single hex screw to have a look:
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I found the problem! It's pretty bad, looking like a combination of mold(?) and delamination, BUT it's entirely restricted to the 'head'/photo tube. The objective appears to be perfectly clean.
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I have a feeling that the head won't be fixable, so I have been thinking about whether I might be able to fit another head onto it. I remember a very old thread either here or on photomacrography where someone had linked to an even older eBay auction for a macroscope which had a makrozoom objective fitted to a different Leica head. I am not sure how well that would work or which ones would be compatible though. I measured the dovetail on the objective while it was apart and it is about 52mm in diameter.
If it's not one thing it's another. I sent off my pinion gear on the m420 last week, so hopefully I'll have at least one of these up and running in the near future.

As a side-note, another one of these setups has come up for sale on eBay recently. It's interesting they don't seem to come up in anything I've read about Wild's photomacroscopes--it seems a bit hard to believe they were made by a third party, though I suppose it's possible, especially given the lack of branding on them.

Scarodactyl
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Post by Scarodactyl »

Just to collect a few more thoughts. I am not sure if the makrozoom objective is infinity corrected or finite. I assume the zoom bodies of the related Wild stereos must be infinity corrected because accessories can be inserted between the head and the zoom body, but the m400 series didn't do that (edit: actually with some googlin' it looks like there's a coaxial illuminator that can be put between objective and head--though i guess there could be some optics to compensate for the change in length??). Savazzi mentions on his site that the m420 head has a tube lens that is essential for it to focus but doesn't go into more detail. So I guess my overall guess is infinity, but I know so little I'd be happy to be corrected on that.

Assuming it is infinity corrected, could I get a trinocular head from any other infinity compound scope and mechanically adapt it on without issue? A while back g4lab posted a link to an intriguing eBay auction with a macroscope made with an m420 objective and a leica dm series compound scope trinocular head http://www.ebay.com/itm/LEICA-M420-M400 ... 2a1a510d5c
Of course I have no way of knowing if it actually worked well. As I understand it Leica compund heads contain a tube lens that is designed to correct for abberations in the objectives, which I doubt applies to the makrozoom or apozoom from Wild. But perhaps one of the other bramd infinity scopes without those corrections?
Leica has also since made a different pair of macroscope zoom lenses the z6 and z16. Their parts diagram includes an adapter to mount either one onto the older m420 head. One wonders then if compatibility goes both ways. Confusingly the oart number and appearance for the heads for the z6/z16 are identical to their stereo microscope heads for the mz series and others--I would not have thought stereo heads would be compatible with a nonstereo objective? But if not, perhaps the stereo heads would work while also not providing erroneous corrections.
It is all a bit confusing but I think the end result could be neat. And once the focus pinion is fixed I should have a normal 420 to compare the setup against to tell if it has actually worked.

Scarodactyl
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Post by Scarodactyl »

Sorry to triple post, but I've done a few more tests.
I finally managed to get the c-mount assembly apart.
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Aside from the single lens at the bottom it is just an empty tube. No way to get at it from the c-mount end, but there are those classic notches for unscrewing it (whatever those are called).
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I, of course, as an optical expert have the exact tool to remove this part.
By which I mean I ground 1/8" off the edge of a wood chisel.
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I am not 100% sure what this does. Maybe it mimics the 1.25x magnification of an m400 series head? I can resolve an image through the tube with or without it. Most of it is dust which wiped off easily but of course the rest is permanent damage from mold.
Anyway, from what I am seeing here and hearing from others it sounds like this is probably not an infinity-corrected setup. However, since I have an AO one ten teaching model with two heads I figured I'd give this monstrosity a try:
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And stuck on my nikon smz base just to make the kludge that much kludgier:
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And... it works! At least sort of!
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I can readily resolve images, though I noticed some odd distortion when looking at things on inclined planes. The real annoyance here is that (as I should have guessed) the image is reversed as in a compound microscope.
I know lots of people work with that every day, get used to it and do amazing work under those conditions. But thanks to my regular use of a stereoscope I have become accustomed to a certain standard of living. I have a feeling there's not going to be an easy way around that if I use a normal compound microscope head? It seems that the Leica solution for their z6/z16 series really is to just hook it up to a stereo head, if this is any indication: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Leica-Mikrosko ... 3640354084 I have a feeling that this might significantly degrade the image, since the head is collecting from either side of the lens rather than the center?

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