The best performer overall is still the Thorlabs ILT200 but there were some big surprises since my earlier post:(http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... hp?t=37740)
There were some big unexpected results. Some of the lenses, to my surprise, performed much better when focused past infinity or short focused.
This is the link to the full test:https://www.closeuphotography.com/tube-lens-test
Hope you find the results useful. Comments and questions are welcome.
Setup:
Objective: Mitutoyo 5x M Plan APO
Camera: Sony A6300, model ILCE-6300, also known as the A6300
Sensor size: 23.5 × 15.6 mm. APS-C. 28.21 mm diagonal. 3.92 micron sensor pitch
Flash: two Godox TT350s wireless flash units, one Godox X1s 2.4G wireless flash transmitter
Vertical stand: Nikon MM-11 with a Nikon focus block
Final lens test list:
Thorlabs ITL200 Tube Lens
Mitutoyo MT-1 Tube lens
Nikon MXA20696 Tube Lens
Reichert Microscope Tube Lens
Canon 250D Close-up Lens
Century Precision Optics +4 Achromatic Diopter Lens
Century Precision Optics +7 Achromatic Diopter Lens
Cosina MMA Matched Macro Adapter Lens
Raynox +4.8 diopter
Raynox +5.9 diopter
Raynox +8 diopter
Sigma LSA Life Size Attachment Lens
Asahi Pentax Tele-Takumar 200mm f/5.6
Carl Zeiss Tele-Tessar T* 200mm f/3.5
Nikkor 135mm f/3.5 Ai
Nikkor 200mm f/4 Ai
Sigma 150mm F2.8 EX DG OS HSM APO Macro
Voigtlander APO-Lanthar 125mm f/2.5
Click on any image open a full size version.
This is the full un-cropped image at 5x with the 100% crop areas outlined in blue.
The results from the Sigma 150 OS was a pleasant surprise! Perfect CA correction and sharp edge to edge.
The Voigtlander 125mm APO-Lanthar was also excellent but I have to mention that the lack of tripod mount collar is a big negative for me (The Sigma 150 does have a tripod collar).
APO-like CA correction for $49. The 135mm f/3.5 Ai Nikkor is one of best lenses and is much cleaner image quality than the 200/4 Ai.
Sigma Normal mount.
Sigma reversed with short (beyond infinity) focus. The cropping will change with the short focus images.
The Century +4 normal mount. Very good performance.
The Century +4 even better with short focus and 110mm between the lens and objective.
Thorlabs ITL200 normal mount.
Thorlabs ITL200 short focus.
Raynox 208mm Normal mount. Excellent.
Raynox 208mm short focus. Excellent +.
Notes:
Some of the lenses in this test were tested with multiple samples, I test three ITL200s and four Sigma LSAs for example. I did not see any variation between samples.
Some of the lenses were tested with short focus, normal focus, minimum objective extension, 50mm extension and 110mm extension in both normal and reverse.
Over the course of this test I shot something like 1400 frames.
Short focus, or using a lens with less extension than is needed for infinity focus means that it is "focused" beyond infinity. This would create an unusable blurry image, but in many cases this happens to work well with tube lenses - as described here. Short focus results in the shorter "effective focal length" used here for magnification calculation purposes, so for example the Raynox +4.8, 208mm lens, with short focus is a 178mm effective FL lens, this would give you .859 x the Mitutoyo objectives marked magnification, for the Mitutoyo 5x M Plan lens this would be 4.29x.
In most cases compared to a down-sized normal focus image, the short focus image is sharper, clean and more detailed.
For more info, images, notes and comments see the post in my site, link at the top of the page.
Be sure to share any comments, questions below.
Thanks.
