(LSA || DCR150 || ITL200) ? FF : CROP

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Adalbert
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(LSA || DCR150 || ITL200) ? FF : CROP

Post by Adalbert »

Hello everybody,

Only to be sure I would like to ask you for the best tube lens for the full-frame and crop cameras.

Three candidates:
1.) Thorlabs ITL200
2.) Raynox DCR-150
3.) Sigma Life Size Attachment

Ranking for the FF: ? ,?, ?
Ranking for the CROP: ? ,?, ?

Thank you in advance.
Best regards, ADi

viktor j nilsson
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Post by viktor j nilsson »

I don't think you can ask for a better test than this:
https://www.closeuphotography.com/tube-lens-test

With discussion here:
http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... hp?t=37843

JH
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Post by JH »

I have the Raynox and the ITL and use Canon 6D FF.
I usually use the Raynox lens mainly because the threads fits the rest of my gear. Rik has shown that the corners on a Nikon FF gets a little better with the Raynox than with the ITL. Search for: ”Tube lens tests on D800E full frame”
I think that this also is the case with the Canon camera/sensor I have.

But when I want to have good corners I use a 360 mm tube lens with my Mitutoyo 10x or 5x or Nikon lenses.

Best regards
Jörgen Hellberg
Jörgen Hellberg, my webbsite www.hellberg.photo

Lou Jost
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Post by Lou Jost »

I'd like to reinforce what Jorgen said about focal length vs format size. If you are happy with a given objective on a tube lens of focal length 200mm on APS, you will get exactly that same image, with same corner quality, filling the FF sensor if you use change to a tube lens of 300mm.

I am using that principle at this very moment, using a Nikon 300mm f/4.5 ED-IF tube lens (which is a great tube lens by the way) on a 10x Mitutoyo.

dmillard
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Post by dmillard »

Lou Jost wrote:I'd like to reinforce what Jorgen said about focal length vs format size. If you are happy with a given objective on a tube lens of focal length 200mm on APS, you will get exactly that same image, with same corner quality, filling the FF sensor if you use change to a tube lens of 300mm.

I am using that principle at this very moment, using a Nikon 300mm f/4.5 ED-IF tube lens (which is a great tube lens by the way) on a 10x Mitutoyo.
Similarly, I get excellent results using Apo-Ronar 240mm f/9 and Nikkor M 300mm f/9 large format lenses as tube lenses with Mitutoyo objectives when I want larger image circles.

I just wanted to add - I always previously used these lenses focused at infinity, but after RobertOToole's findings about the improved performance of various tube lenses when used with less distance to the sensor, I'm going to test these two lenses at shorter extensions also.

Adalbert
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Post by Adalbert »

Hello everybody,
Many thanks for the hints!
But what about the resolution if you use tube-lenses with 300mm ( 240mm || 360mm) ,
FF-cameras and microscope - lenses,
which expect the tube-lens with 200mm (eg. CFI60 or Mitu) ?
BR, ADi

Lou Jost
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Post by Lou Jost »

No, objectives don't seem to care what focal length tube lens you use. As I said above, you get the same image (same resolution and diffraction blur relative to the picture width, same FOV) on a FF sensor with 300mm tube lens or APS sensor and 200mm tube lens.

For infinity optics, "magnification" is not really a property of the objective itself. The important things are NA and FOV.

mawyatt
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Post by mawyatt »

Lou Jost wrote:No, objectives don't seem to care what focal length tube lens you use. As I said above, you get the same image (same resolution and diffraction blur relative to the picture width, same FOV) on a FF sensor with 300mm tube lens or APS sensor and 200mm tube lens.

For infinity optics, "magnification" is not really a property of the objective itself. The important things are NA and FOV.
Lou,

That makes sense, but what about what Robert has found with his "Short Focus" idea of moving the tube lens past infinite focus and added some "extra" extension to the space between the objective and tube lens.

Any thoughts on this?

Best,
Research is like a treasure hunt, you don't know where to look or what you'll find!
~Mike

Lou Jost
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Post by Lou Jost »

That seems to be something else entirely. I have no idea why that works so well.

mawyatt
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Post by mawyatt »

Using a longer or shorter FL as a tube lens makes sense per your explanation, same image projected smaller (higher res with smaller image circle) or larger (lower res with larger image circle), kind of like the resolution times image circle is a constant (within reason) for a given objective.

However Robert's short focus doesn't seem to follow this line of thinking. All I can come up with is the focus beyond infinity somehow compensates for a particular lens behavior. This is why I asked the question to Robert if this applied to other tube lenses, even the other Mitty's like the 10 and 20X. Also the Raynox 250 evidently didn't respond to the short focus concept, like the 150??

Interesting indeed!!

Best,
Research is like a treasure hunt, you don't know where to look or what you'll find!
~Mike

RobertOToole
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Post by RobertOToole »

Hi Mike,
mawyatt wrote:Using a longer or shorter FL as a tube lens makes sense per your explanation, same image projected smaller (higher res with smaller image circle) or larger (lower res with larger image circle), kind of like the resolution times image circle is a constant (within reason) for a given objective.

However Robert's short focus doesn't seem to follow this line of thinking. All I can come up with is the focus beyond infinity somehow compensates for a particular lens behavior. This is why I asked the question to Robert if this applied to other tube lenses,
I did try almost all the longer tube lenses and they worked the same way as the DCR-150 with much more detail and sharpness. This worked very well with the Century, and the Sigma, off the top of my head.

Also I did not think to try the Mity 10x or 20x, but I did throw on a Nikon S Fluor with the ITL200 with shorter focus and the results were very much improved without any side-effects.

mawyatt wrote:even the other Mitty's like the 10 and 20X. Also the Raynox 250 evidently didn't respond to the short focus concept, like the 150??

Interesting indeed!!

Best,
The Raynox 208mm (DCR-150), 170mm both worked very well with short focus but I did not think to try the 125mm Raynox (DCR-250) since I normally don't push objectives down that far. I would guess that the R125mm would also benefit from short focus.

Hope that clears things up a little.

Robert

RobertOToole
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Post by RobertOToole »

JH wrote:I have the Raynox and the ITL and use Canon 6D FF.
I usually use the Raynox lens mainly because the threads fits the rest of my gear. Rik has shown that the corners on a Nikon FF gets a little better with the Raynox than with the ITL. Search for: ”Tube lens tests on D800E full frame”
I think that this also is the case with the Canon camera/sensor I have.

But when I want to have good corners I use a 360 mm tube lens with my Mitutoyo 10x or 5x or Nikon lenses.

Best regards
Jörgen Hellberg
JH,

FYI, Rik's Tube lens + 800E post: http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... hp?t=23898

For the record, you failed to mention one important factor with Rik's D800E tube test. He did not try any of the lenses, other than the Raynox, in retro mount. The ITL200 especially went from average in normal mount, to best in my test when used in reverse!

BTW, I tested the ITL200 in 7 different configurations with 3 different samples, two I tested twice, thats 45 test runs.

All the best,

Robert

JH
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Post by JH »

I do not have the possibility to test this with my own gear-but could the construction if the sensor with glass in front of it explain some of this?

Best regards
Jörgen Hellberg
Jörgen Hellberg, my webbsite www.hellberg.photo

RobertOToole
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Post by RobertOToole »

Lou Jost wrote:No, objectives don't seem to care what focal length tube lens you use. As I said above, you get the same image (same resolution and diffraction blur relative to the picture width, same FOV) on a FF sensor with 300mm tube lens or APS sensor and 200mm tube lens.

For infinity optics, "magnification" is not really a property of the objective itself. The important things are NA and FOV.
Hi Lou,

One interesting thing that I found with my testing the group of tube lenses that I did not expect was field curvature. Some lenses were sharpest from center to corner on one single frame, the Century +4, the ITL200, the Nikkor 135mm Ai. On the other hand some of the lenses in the group like the Raynox were not flat, it took maybe 2-3 or 4 frames to to get the center and corners sharp. Some lenses, I would have to see my notes, had a field shaped like a potato chip, maybe 4-5 frames+ were needed to get a sharp corner.

BTW, each lens in the test had the same stack step, 5 microns and the stage + camera was aligned, and stayed aligned for the test (and is still aligned a couple of weeks later).

Robert

enricosavazzi
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Post by enricosavazzi »

JH wrote:I do not have the possibility to test this with my own gear-but could the construction if the sensor with glass in front of it explain some of this?

Best regards
Jörgen Hellberg
The glass window of the sensor and the additional UV+IR cut filter, and if present the anti-aliasing filter, have some effect in adding some spherical aberration, but this is visible only with fast lenses (usually f/1 to f/2) of relatively short focal lengths. It can safely be ignored when effective aperture is f/8 or slower. This is principally a problem when adapting fast legacy lenses designed for use with film on digital cameras.

There is some potential for multiple reflections with flat glass plates mounted between sensor and lens, but the sensor window and built-in camera filters are almost always covered with excellent AR coatings.
--ES

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