Worth 3x the price? Olympus 100x fluorite VS superapochromat (and 3 more 100x objectives)

Have questions about the equipment used for macro- or micro- photography? Post those questions in this forum.

Moderators: rjlittlefield, ChrisR, Chris S., Pau

Macro_Cosmos
Posts: 1511
Joined: Mon Jan 15, 2018 9:23 pm
Contact:

Worth 3x the price? Olympus 100x fluorite VS superapochromat (and 3 more 100x objectives)

Post by Macro_Cosmos »

Image
The SApo is triple the price of the fluorite, or semiapochromat. Both are UIS2 objectives with an Fn=26.5. The used prices are similar, where the SApo is triple the cost of a fluorite.

At 200x, with a U-CA magnification changer, which induces a sizable central glare hotspot with direct projection. This hotspot is gone with DIC so I generally don't care, but it's pretty detrimental here, causing the centre to look less sharp due to loss of contrast.
Image

Fluorite is plenty good but the SApo does edge, by 3 times? No.

Here's another:
Image
Middle one mislabelled, it's the UPlanApo 100x Iris, NA=1.35. Fluorite here is the UIS1 version, it is more or less similar to UIS2 in the centre. However, the corners were so nasty I didn't bother to show it. UIS2 clearly has superior corners. As someone who just cuts them away, this doesn't matter either.

RobertOToole
Posts: 2627
Joined: Thu Jan 17, 2013 9:34 pm
Location: United States
Contact:

Re: Worth 3x the price? Olympus 100x fluorite VS superapochromat (and 3 more 100x objectives)

Post by RobertOToole »

Where did you find that 100x target MC?

Best,

Robert

Scarodactyl
Posts: 1617
Joined: Sat Apr 14, 2018 10:26 am

Re: Worth 3x the price? Olympus 100x fluorite VS superapochromat (and 3 more 100x objectives)

Post by Scarodactyl »

Very interesting. The contrast in CA seems significantly smaller than the 20xes show, though I imagine a big part of what you're paying for is consistent corrections across a wide field of view. Is there any chance you could show the corners with the mag changer at 1x?
Certainly with the 2x on there isn't the kind of difference I'd want for triple the price.

Macro_Cosmos
Posts: 1511
Joined: Mon Jan 15, 2018 9:23 pm
Contact:

Re: Worth 3x the price? Olympus 100x fluorite VS superapochromat (and 3 more 100x objectives)

Post by Macro_Cosmos »

RobertOToole wrote:
Fri Jun 11, 2021 1:45 pm
Where did you find that 100x target MC?

Best,

Robert
It's a specialised resolution target that goes down to 400lp/mm I bought years ago for a project. It was around $200. There's 4 segments, horizontal and vertical, and angled at 45 degrees in both directions.

Scarodactyl wrote:
Fri Jun 11, 2021 3:21 pm
Very interesting. The contrast in CA seems significantly smaller than the 20xes show, though I imagine a big part of what you're paying for is consistent corrections across a wide field of view. Is there any chance you could show the corners with the mag changer at 1x?
Certainly with the 2x on there isn't the kind of difference I'd want for triple the price.
At 1x, it's just an empty tube that causes heavy mechanical vignetting, I have a set at 1.25x and it seems identical. Of course I can just unmount the magnification changer so there's no more vignetting. 2x is just more (empty) magnification. The resolution of the sensor is already too high for the 100x to handle (~12MP would be ideal) despite the seemingly high NA. Hopefully that makes sense.

Post Reply Previous topicNext topic