Nikon CFI Plan Apo 4X/0.20 vs 5x vs Mag.x 5x LD Test

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RobertOToole
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Nikon CFI Plan Apo 4X/0.20 vs 5x vs Mag.x 5x LD Test

Post by RobertOToole »

This is the second part of my test of the Mag.x 5x, this time I compared the Nikon Plan APO 4x/0.20 at 5x.

See the first test, Mag.x vs the Mitutoyo 5x here: http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... hp?t=36876

HarisA gave me the idea to push the Nikon PlanAPO to 5x, which I had never run before, to help boost the corner performance and at the same time eliminate the tube lens performance question since they use the same 250mm tube lens at 5x.

The Nikon PlanAPO corners do look at little better at 5x than at 4x.

Lenses: Nikon CFI Plan Apochromat 4X/0.20 ?/- Nano Crystal Coating Objective Qioptiq Mag.x LD Plan Apochromat 5x / 0.20 Objective

Tube lens: Century Optics +4 diopter. https://www.closeuphotography.com/centu ... c-diopter/

Test setup:
-Camera: Sony A6300
-Godox TT350s wireless flash x 2, diffused
-Godox X1s 2.4G wireless flash trigger/transmitter

Both objectives were used with my standard M52 studio tube lens set-up. For more info, follow this link: https://www.closeuphotography.com/52mm-setup

The Sony A6300 camera used for the test was vertically mounted on a Nikon MM-11 stand. Manual mode was used at ISO 80. Each lens was focus bracketed and the single sharpest image for the center and corner were chosen at 100% view in Photoshop. All images were shot as RAW Sony ARW files and processed in PS CC with all noise reduction and lens correction turned off, all settings were zeroed out (true zero) and the same settings were used for all of the images. No auto-CA correction was applied, I double checked!

Test images: Click on any of these images to open a larger version.

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This is a brand new wafer that just arrived, made in the 80s for Xerox. Picked this one up on Ebay.

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Mag.x 5x file resized to 1500px. Nice and consistent corner to corner. Interesting difference in colors but both were shot and processed identically.

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Nikon Plan APO 4x/0.20 file resized to 1500px. You can see some corner softening here.

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100% crop areas indicated above.

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100% center crop with 200% crop area indicated. Sharpness is very similar but CA suppression is not.

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200% center crop area. CAs are an issue here for the Nikon.

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100% off-center crop with 200% crop area indicated. Close in sharpness but CAs are an issue again.

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200% off-center crop area. CAs are a problem off center for Nikon while the Mag.x is 100% clean.

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100% far corner crop. The Mag.x is almost perfect in the corners the Nikon is softer but not horrible and better here than 4x.

For more info on the Mag.x objective and more tests see the page on my site: https://www.closeuphotography.com/qiopt ... objective/

Questions and comments welcome.

Robert

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