New lens company and APO macro lens

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Davids
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New lens company and APO macro lens

Post by Davids »

Some of you may have already seen this, but there's a new lens company out of Switzerland, NWS-Instruments, who will be producing a 110mm APO Macro lens. They will start a Kickstarter campaign within the next few months.
You can check out the lens specs in the link below.
http://www.nws-instruments.ch/NWS_110APO.html

Adalbert
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Post by Adalbert »

I'm looking forward to seeing the astronomical prices :-)

Lou Jost
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Post by Lou Jost »

Unfortunate that they chose to recess the front element. This limits its use in stacking.

Also odd that they don't mention the maximum magnification, just the min focus distance.

Also odd (for a macro lens) that they don't mention the magnification at which their MTF and point spread graphs were made. A team of macro designers ought to know the importance of including that info. Maybe I missed it somewhere?

ChrisR
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Post by ChrisR »

Don't like the permanently fixed hood, or the 270° focus turn.
Didn't like it on an Apo Lanthar I tried.
Considering it has a Hasselblad V-mount, I wonder what its image circle is...
Chris R

hero
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Post by hero »

When I saw the PSF plot, I laughed. Any plot would look good if you choose the scaling of the axes that way.

In all honesty, there is no shortage of excellent options for 1:infinity - 1:1 or even 2:1 magnification in this focal length range. I don't see how this lens brings more to the table.

Now, if someone made a 5x - 10x variable magnification, LWD, high NA lens/objective with variable aperture that mounted natively to a camera...that would be exciting.

Lou Jost
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Post by Lou Jost »

The image circle is for medium format.

If it were truly apochromatic, and went from zero to at least 2x and was f/2.0, it could be interesting. f/3.2 is marginal if it has to be stopped down to be sharp.

Macro_Cosmos
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Post by Macro_Cosmos »

Not sure why they seem proud in that rather mediocre 120lp/mm. It’s not surprising for an enlarger lens to reach 200.

Also, why don’t I see a reproduction ratio? This is supposedly a macro lens, right?

Then this begs another question, what’s the standard of the MTF charts? Is it lab tested or generated by some optical designing program? What’s the magnification being used? If it’s at 1:1, then the 120lp/mm really isn’t at all impressive.

That permanent lens hood is dare I say... stupid. How about CA? One can’t just toss the letters APO out and expect others to believe it. (Looking at you Sigma) The PN 105mm, king of 1:1 didn’t require those letters.

“Filter connection” is a rather funky way to say “filter thread”, am I not posh enough?

Then they allude to the fact that no electronics is involved with the f-stops. So I have to meter wide open then close down the aperture myself, forget about using it without a tripod...

Not impressed.

Antal
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Post by Antal »

Their other product seem to be much more interesting. I don't use such lens, but a 23mm with 79 fucus distance and 70mm image circle is not very common to my eyes.
And their view camera has some good points and good ideas (ok, I had them too, some years ago..).
The no-go is tilting without micrometrie. If you ever tried to do it, you know: Its impossible in digital photography.
But I'm happy to see people in trying to get some innovation in viewcameras in switzerland, it was very quite from sinar, linhof and cambo since a while. I look foward to their future developpements.

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