Tube lenses spinning my head !

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Lou Jost
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Post by Lou Jost »

Yes, there is always a cost vs benefit tradeoff. I still recommend the cheap Vivitar/Komine unless you need the very utmost in quality. I should add that my tests were on an MFT sensor so the difference might not even show up on a FF sensor with big pixels. And my tests were done with a reversed macro lens in front, not a microscope objective.

See here:
http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... 521de17c3a

Yawns
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Post by Yawns »

Thank you for this thread ... based on your opinions and info I just got a

Vivitar 135mm by Komine (M42) for 65 euros :) (like 70USD maybe) and the lens is in very good condition ...

If no ther it's far more simple to use than the Raynox 250 (125mm) .. no more that bucket of adapters and tubes. ...

I was really after a "tube" lens able to do less than 170mm without vignette .. (all my other zooms do)

Thank you
YAWNS _ (Y)et (A)nother (W)onderful (N)ewbie (S)hooting

microman
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Post by microman »

Lou Jost wrote:Yes, there is always a cost vs benefit tradeoff. I still recommend the cheap Vivitar/Komine unless you need the very utmost in quality. I should add that my tests were on an MFT sensor so the difference might not even show up on a FF sensor with big pixels. And my tests were done with a reversed macro lens in front, not a microscope objective.

See here:
http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... 521de17c3a
Good stuff, thanks :)
Really appriciate all the testing you guys in this forum do so the rest of us does
dont have to shell out $ hehe.

svalley
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Post by svalley »

enricosavazzi wrote:I never tried the Micro Nikkor 200 mm, but if I recall correctly it might not be one of the best for use as tube lens (it is very good in macro photography).
I was looking for info on tube lenses and ran across this thread and thought I would comment about the Micro-Nikkor 200mm. It has been my primary tube lens for the last year.

At first I could not get it to work with my Mitutoyo M Plans with the adapter rings in the usual configuration, with the 62>>52 mounted on the filter threads and then the CN-S adpter screwed into that and then the objective mounted on that.

That made the rear of the objective too far from the front element of the 200mm. The solution is to screw the CN_S adapter into the back of the 62>>52, screw the objective into the CN-S and then screw the whole thing into the filter threads on the 200mm.....whew.

That puts the objective and the 200 close enough to work very well together and so far I have been immensely pleased with the quality of my images. I needed to put a little glue on the threads between the two adapters so they didn't unscrew when you screw in the objective.

I have used quite a few lens setups over the years for stacking and I have to say that the pairing of these optics, the super sharp 200mm Micro-Nikkor and the Mitutoyo objectives 5x, 10x and 20x which are mindblowingly sharp, creates the most wonderful optical system I have ever worked with.

I am looking for either a 135mm or a 150mm to use in those situations when the subject will not fit in the frame with my 5x.

Steve
"You can't build a time machine without weird optics"
Steve Valley - Albany, Oregon

Lou Jost
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Post by Lou Jost »

Steve, I've been curious about that lens. Have you ever compared it directly to the other 200mm lenses commonly used by us here? Or the 180 ED?

THe 135mm mentioned in comments above is a good choice. The Sigma 135 ART lens is better, but much more expensive and much larger and heavier (and it lacks a tripod collar, which a lens of that size really needs).

dickb
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Post by dickb »

When talking about 200mm f/4 Micro-Nikkor lenses it is useful to specify whether you mean the older Ai version or the newer AF-D one. AFAIK they are different optically. The old one is relatively small and cheap, and has a very nice tripod collar. The AF lens is larger and more expensive and is supposed to be better optically when used in the way it was intended. I used to have the Ai version, I have never used the AF version so I can't compare them properly.

mawyatt
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Post by mawyatt »

Steve,

I'm curious that you found the distance between the Mitutoyo and 200mm front critical. I had thought this wasn't critical at all, and some had placed the Mitutoyo 25~50mm in front without image degradation.

Please elaborate on your findings?

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 »

I recall that nathanm in his quantitative tests of tube lenses for medium format, found best results with the objective closer to the tube lens; in fact he machined an adapter that put the objective closer than a flat adapter would have done.

Myself, I haven't noticed an important difference, but I've seen that some kinds of aberrations increase with distance, and other kinds decrease with distance, so I don't think there is a general rule. It depends on the objective and maybe on the tube lens too.

Lou Jost
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Post by Lou Jost »

I bought some new tube lenses and will try to test them against my old lenses today, using a Mitutoyo 7.5x which is known to have a very wide image circle, so that any vignetting or corner problems should be due to the tube lens:
80-200 ED Nikon zoom
80-200 ED Olympus 4/3
180 2.8 ED Nikkor manual focus
210mm Rodenstock large-format lens
200 f4 AI non-ED Nikkor
200 f4 Nikkor-Q late version (Wide focus ring, f/32 min aperture, 2m closest focus distance, good blue coating)
Raynox DCR-150
Raynox DCR-5320

mawyatt
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Post by mawyatt »

Lou Jost wrote:I bought some new tube lenses and will try to test them against my old lenses today, using a Mitutoyo 7.5x which is known to have a very wide image circle, so that any vignetting or corner problems should be due to the tube lens:
80-200 ED Nikon zoom
80-200 ED Olympus 4/3
180 2.8 ED Nikkor manual focus
210mm Rodenstock large-format lens
200 f4 AI non-ED Nikkor
200 f4 Nikkor-Q late version (Wide focus ring, f/32 min aperture, 2m closest focus distance, good blue coating)
Raynox DCR-150
Raynox DCR-5320
Lou,

Sigma LSA maybe?

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 »

Sadly I do not have it...

mawyatt
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Post by mawyatt »

Lou,

I have the old Nikon 200 f4 "Q" in both f22 and f32 minimum aperture. Is there a difference for tube use?

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 »

The f32 version with the fat focusing ring and closer focus is supposed to have more modern coatings, which might matter, though I would not expect it to make much of a difference in this simple 4-element lens.

svalley
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Post by svalley »

dickb wrote:When talking about 200mm f/4 Micro-Nikkor lenses it is useful to specify whether you mean the older Ai version or the newer AF-D one. AFAIK they are different optically. The old one is relatively small and cheap, and has a very nice tripod collar. The AF lens is larger and more expensive and is supposed to be better optically when used in the way it was intended. I used to have the Ai version, I have never used the AF version so I can't compare them properly.
I am using the AF-D 200mm Micro-Nikkor.
mawyatt wrote:I'm curious that you found the distance between the Mitutoyo and 200mm front critical. I had thought this wasn't critical at all, and some had placed the Mitutoyo 25~50mm in front without image degradation.

Please elaborate on your findings?
I could not get it to focus. I don't remember if there was vignetting. I didn't mess with it very long before I hit on my solution to move the objective closer and never tried the original configuration again. My adapter rings are glued together now so I can't retest.

I used a 70-180 Micro-Nikkor, but found a lot of vignetting at anything less than 180mm. Highlights were smeared into crosses at the edges of the image so I didn't continue with it.

I also tried 2 105mm Micro-Nikkors, an AI and an AF-D, and both vignetted too severely to be useful.

At work, my camera was a Canon 7D and I used a Sigma 150mm macro with the Mitutoyos and it was pretty good, but not as sharp as my Nikon personal setup. I am using a Nikon D810 at home.

Steve
"You can't build a time machine without weird optics"
Steve Valley - Albany, Oregon

mawyatt
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Post by mawyatt »

svalley wrote:
dickb wrote:When talking about 200mm f/4 Micro-Nikkor lenses it is useful to specify whether you mean the older Ai version or the newer AF-D one. AFAIK they are different optically. The old one is relatively small and cheap, and has a very nice tripod collar. The AF lens is larger and more expensive and is supposed to be better optically when used in the way it was intended. I used to have the Ai version, I have never used the AF version so I can't compare them properly.
I am using the AF-D 200mm Micro-Nikkor.
mawyatt wrote:I'm curious that you found the distance between the Mitutoyo and 200mm front critical. I had thought this wasn't critical at all, and some had placed the Mitutoyo 25~50mm in front without image degradation.

Please elaborate on your findings?
I could not get it to focus. I don't remember if there was vignetting. I didn't mess with it very long before I hit on my solution to move the objective closer and never tried the original configuration again. My adapter rings are glued together now so I can't retest.

I used a 70-180 Micro-Nikkor, but found a lot of vignetting at anything less than 180mm. Highlights were smeared into crosses at the edges of the image so I didn't continue with it.

I also tried 2 105mm Micro-Nikkors, an AI and an AF-D, and both vignetted too severely to be useful.

At work, my camera was a Canon 7D and I used a Sigma 150mm macro with the Mitutoyos and it was pretty good, but not as sharp as my Nikon personal setup. I am using a Nikon D810 at home.

Steve
Steve,

Thanks. I found the same with the Micro Nikon 105 f2.8 VR, and the 70-200 F2.8 VR1 away from 200mm. Someone mentioned that with zooms the optical center gets very far back into the physical lens as you go away from max FL. Also don't think any ~100mm lens will work well and produce decent image size, even at APC (DX), maybe some of the really small sensors it may work. Like you I tend to work at FX but also use DX sometimes for the slightly finer pixel pitch, the D850 solves that nicely though :D

Will be interesting to see what Lou comes up with, he's got a bunch of candidate tubes lenses around 200mm. Was hoping he had a Sigma LFA that he could compare, others (Robert I think) prefer this over other 200mm tube lenses.

Sometimes a great normal use lens, makes a lousy tube lens, the stunningly sharp Rokinon 135mm F2 is and example. However the old Nikon 200mm F4 "Q" lenses are not that good compared to modern 200mm lenses, but work very well as tube lenses....go figure :roll:

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

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