Tandem-lens macroscope constructed with photography lenses

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enricosavazzi
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Tandem-lens macroscope constructed with photography lenses

Post by enricosavazzi »

According to the abstract, the following paper describes "The design of a macroscope constructed with photography lenses". It may also be relevant to the discussion of tandem-lens systems in other current threads, as well as our general interest in front-to-front coupled lenses and add-on lenses. It is also related to infinity-corrected objectives and tube lenses, since the space between the two lenses is likely an infinity space. Unfortunately, I have not been able to locate a PDF of the complete paper:

https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/A ... d2c5e503e7

PS: There is a (very) little information on a similar device here. Basically, just two front-to-front coupled 50 mm lenses, but nothing as (potentially) specific as the above reference.
http://www.cns.nyu.edu/~hallum/hallum_e ... d_2006.pdf

Also a little in this patent:
https://www.google.com/patents/US6069734
--ES

Ichthyophthirius
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Post by Ichthyophthirius »

Hi Enrico,

As you suspected, the paper has just a very general description of the principle:

"By using compound lenses available in the consumer photography (especially 35 mm single lens reflex (SLR) camera) and videography markets, one can construct a high quality tandem lens system with great economy and ease. Two such lenses set to infinite focus are placed face-to-face and the object/image conjugates are then located at the back focal planes of the respective lenses (where the film or video tube/detector is normally located)."

"Fig. 1 may be somewhat misleading in that the image projecting from an infinity-focussed lens is actually somewhat divergent. Consequently, the conjugate lens collecting the infinite focus rays should have a slightly larger effective entrance pupil diameter to reduce loss due to vignetting."

"We chose to use K-mount SLR camera lenses (Chinon, Pentax, Tamron) because many excellent compound lenses are available with this popular bayonet mount, and similar lenses were already found in our laboratory."

"Our most frequently used objective (f = 50 mm F/I.2) provided a large numerical aperture of 0.4."

Most of the paper is concerned with the fluorescence units and with testing the setup on different biological specimens. They don't mention specific camera lenses.

The paper is found here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 7091900382
or
https://doi.org/10.1016/0165-0270(91)90038-2 (copy whole line into browser)

Regards, Ichty

enricosavazzi
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Joined: Sat Nov 21, 2009 2:41 pm
Location: Västerås, Sweden
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Post by enricosavazzi »

Thanks Ichty.

This is a commercial device that appears to be built in a quite similar way (with Leica Plan Apo objectives instead of camera lenses):
http://www.scimedia.com/fis/other/thtmicro/feature.html
Specifications here:
http://www.scimedia.com/fis/other/thtmicro/spec.html

And the classic from Mic-UK:
http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/ind ... acro2.html
--ES

Choronzon
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Post by Choronzon »

27 years ago is an eternity when comparing fluorescence microscopy then to the objectives available today.
I am not young enough to know everything.

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