FAQ--which Olympus objectives are good for macro work, and which are not?

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Scarodactyl
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FAQ--which Olympus objectives are good for macro work, and which are not?

Post by Scarodactyl »

This is a quick draft that needs some photos with appropriate permissions and probably some more setails, but it is a start. Please post additions, corrections, questions or especially photos that may be used. I don't have any infinity splans or dplans anymore.

There are two main eras of Olympus infinity corrected objectives: the BH2 era when only metallurgical objectives were infinity corrected and the modern BX era when all olympus objectives are infinity corrected.

BH2 objectives expect corrective eyepieces and probably tube lens corrections as well. These are not great for macro work because there is no ideal way to get all the corrections applied and maintain a wide field of view. The objectives are corrected to an impressove 26.5mm field number but Olympus never released a photo eyepiece that could take advantage of that, only viewing eyepieces.
When used with their correcting optics these are excellent performers with approximately fluorite level corrections. Without corrective optics they can be surprisingly good in the center but not great in the periphery.
The relevant objectives are any Splans or Dplans with f=180 on them, with or without a Neo- prefix. Those knurls are distinctive and don't show up past this era on Olympus objectives.
There are also the very rare RK objectives and maybe other one-offs like that from this era which all have similar styling.

BX era objectives are fully internally corrected. They can be used with any well corrected tube lens and go direct to camera. These are the ones that are best for macro work, though above an NA of 0.3 you need to look for metallurgical objectives with an M prefix to avoid coverslip correction issues.

An L prefix indicates a long working distance variant (ie LMPlanFl). Real nice for macro at the cost of a lower NA.
A 'C' prefix indicates variable or unusually deep coverslip corrections (ie LCPlanApo). These can be good for shooting through thick media but can be annoykng to set up for shooting in air.
A "U" prefix means 'universal', and indicates a slightly newer version (ie mplanfl vs umplanfl). This is not a big deal.

I personally use an MPlanFl BD 50x/0.8, an MPlanFl BD 100x/0.9 and an LCPlanApo 20x/0.4. They cover aps-c well on a 200mm nikon tube lens and are generally pretty excellent, though the 100x is a pinch hitter for high mag epi DIC.
I previously had a BH2 era BHM with infinity NeoSplans and epi DIC which was excellent but annoying to photograph with.

Pau
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Re: FAQ--which Olympus objectives are good for macro work, and which are not?

Post by Pau »

Charles Krebs uses (or used) Olympus infinite MPLFLN UIS2 objectives in his DIY "macroscope" viewtopic.php?p=144389#p144389
Objectives briefly commented here http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... 07#p113307

I use two Olympus for macro:
UPlanFL N 4/0.13 ∞/- UIS2 WD 17.0mm FN 26.5 (official)
LMPlanFL 20/0.40 ∞/0 UIS WD 12.0mm FN 26.5 (official)


Both are very very good although I don't think that they reach the Mitutoyo Plan Apo level: some longitudinal chromatic aberration and smaller good image circle (barely covering APSC)...
Pau

Scarodactyl
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Re: FAQ--which Olympus objectives are good for macro work, and which are not?

Post by Scarodactyl »

I wonder if we could also make a list every relevant olympus objective with comments and links where information is known. There aren't too many.

Chris S.
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Re: FAQ--which Olympus objectives are good for macro work, and which are not?

Post by Chris S. »

Thanks, gents--this is an excellent start.

To my mind--knowing nothing about Olympus optics--the more specific and complete, the better.

--Chris S.

Alan Wood
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Re: FAQ--which Olympus objectives are good for macro work, and which are not?

Post by Alan Wood »

If anyone wants to compile a list of the BX-era UIS and UIS2 objectives, I have a couple of PDFs of catalogues with lots of information to get you started.

Here is an explanation of the abbreviations on Olympus objectives:
Olympus-objectives-abbreviations.jpg
Alan Wood

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