M Plan Apo HL 5x/0.13 vs Mitutoyo M Plan Apo 5x/0.14

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Scarodactyl
Posts: 1616
Joined: Sat Apr 14, 2018 10:26 am

M Plan Apo HL 5x/0.13 vs Mitutoyo M Plan Apo 5x/0.14

Post by Scarodactyl »

I recently got a crazy deal on one of these beautiful black mitutoyo-alike objectives on eBay, a price I couldn't refuse.
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These are pretty cheap even new--Bolioptics, a retail outlet for generic microscopes, sells them for only 400 bucks new. They are much cheaper if buying direct from China.
Note I say "mituyoto-alike" because this is not a clone of the Mitutoyo 5x. It has a slightly lower rated NA of 0.13 and significantly longer working distance of 45mm vs 34 for the mitutoyo. Still, it is worth a head to head to see how it does. The 5x is still a nice lens for photography, even if the Laowa 2.5-5x is cutting into its market share, and getting a used genuine Mitutoyo can be expensive and a bit risky so it's nice to have an idea of how well a generic copy might do.
There have been a few tests of other 5x mitutoyo copies. There's this one of a direct clone, this older one sold by wemacro, and this (disastrous) one of an older clone (I suspect this one may be a bad copy but who can say?)
Anyway let's cut to the chase. Shot with coaxial illumination on my microscope onto a canon rebel T7 (aps-c). The exposure was a bit longer for the HL because of the lower NA, and I brightened a couple of them to match better. I took wafer shots too but at 5x they were not very revealing.
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It's about what you'd hope for--not as good as a mitty but not bad at all. Both produce good detail but the HL shows more lateral CA. The mitutoyo is not free from it either but shows less. It is also similar but a bit inferior to the mitutoyo in DIC. In an odd twist the HL and mitutoyo did not have any noticeable distortion relative to the other which almost never happens in head to heads. Planarity is slightly worse on the HL but it is not extremely pronounced. Overall it's a solid lens which should take nice photos, at least on aps-c.
At the $400 dollar bolioptics price you might do better to get two copies of the one reviewed here and hope one copy is good, or buy used mitutoyos until you find one that's in good shape (might be first try, I've had great luck with them), but at a lower price point it's a decent contender. If you happen to need that extra 11mm of working distance it gets more appealing.

Edit: Revisited this with a different wafer. The first one I tried was really too detailed for the 5x, and I think this one is too low in detail, but it does show that there is some smearing of details in the corner on the HL, and emphasizes the slight blue glow on the HL as well. Still, the center and edge are solidly not bad, and while the corner is definitely inferior to the real deal it isn't exceptionally terrible either.
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