Opinons on some micreoscope lenses

[Markus Ottosson]

I recently bought for micreoscope lenses and just wanted to know how good and usefull they will be for photography.
I don't have any experience or knowledge about these types of lenses.

The 100x I bought mainly to trade for something with less magnification as I assume they need to be in oil to work?

Some pictures of the lenses.











What would be a fair value for them, mainly the 100x as I plan to keep the other two?

[Ichthyophthirius]

I recently bought for micreoscope lenses and just wanted to know how good and usefull they will be for photography.

Hi Markus,

What kind of photography? On a normal microscope or using just the objective, for macro?

All four lenses are "simple" achromats, manufactured before the 1960s (although of the highest quality at the time), the first three are unlikely to have antireflective coating.

The crucial question is their condition. Are they clean, free of oil and other damage, and do they give a sharp image? If they are OK, their practical value far exceeds their financial value (which will only be slightly above that of the very sought-after brass containers they came in).

Regards,

Ichty

[Markus Ottosson]

I recently bought for micreoscope lenses and just wanted to know how good and usefull they will be for photography.

Hi Markus,

What kind of photography? On a normal microscope or using just the objective, for macro?


Ichty

I'm going to use them mostly for macro as I do not own a microscope yet.
They at least look very clean accept for the 40x one.
Will the lack of antireflective coating have a big impact on image quality?
I have only used a old Lomo microscope lens before so maby its a step up from that at least.

The nice brass containers was an added bonus i did expect.
Paid about 15$ for them each.

[Ichthyophthirius]

Hi Markus,

Only the 10:1 will be useful for this. It is uncoated but it doesn't need compensating eyepieces. Just mount the objective about 152 mm in front of the camera sensor (+/- 5 mm is OK). http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... hp?t=12147

The others are not suitable. The working distances are too short (less than 0.5 mm) to illuminate the object, they need a cover glass (40:1) and/or oil immersion (100:1) as well as compensating eyepieces. These objectives can ony really be used on a microscope.

Regards, Ichty

[Markus Ottosson]

Hi Markus,

Only the 10:1 will be useful for this. It is uncoated but it doesn't need compensating eyepieces. Just mount the objective about 152 mm in front of the camera sensor (+/- 5 mm is OK). http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... hp?t=12147

The others are not suitable. The working distances are too short (less than 0.5 mm) to illuminate the object, they need a cover glass (40:1) and/or oil immersion (100:1) as well as compensating eyepieces. These objectives can ony really be used on a microscope.

Regards, Ichty

Thank you very much.
Is there a place where you can read about and look up diffrent lenses and see what all the numbers on them means?

[Ichthyophthirius]

Hi,

You can put the information together by looing through the old Leitz manuals http://microscope.database.free.fr/Welcome.html

and in particular this one: http://www.science-info.net/docs/leitz/ ... ystems.pdf


For the 10:1:

3 (Leitz objective ID; just giving achromats numbers was often done in the 19th-early 20th century; Zeiss used letters ("D"))
A = 0,25 (numerical aperture 0.25)
10:1 (image ratio at a distance of 152 mm)


For the 100:1:

170/0,17 (tube length 170 mm; cover glass thickness 0.17 mm)
Oel 100:1 (oil immersion; image ratio)
A 1,30 (numerical aperture)

1/12 (objective ID)
253541 (serial number)

[steveminchington]

Hi Markus,

I would suggest selling all of them and buying this instead

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Nikon-CFN-Pla ... SwmtJXXrxB

The Nikon CFN Plan 10x is a very good objective and will give excellent results. It doesn't need corrective optics and you can mount it directly on tubes to your camera - no need for a tube lens. This was the first objective I bought to use on my macro rig - you don't see them very often on ebay, so might be worth a consider. They do get snapped up pretty quick when the do come up, and this is a good price providing the optics are not marked.

Steve