1x Test; Stacked 4/80mm Lenses vs Tamron Macro Lens

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RobertOToole
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1x Test; Stacked 4/80mm Lenses vs Tamron Macro Lens

Post by RobertOToole »

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The Test

After all the fantastic results I've had with stacked lenses from 2-5x, I wanted to find out if it was possible to get good results at 1x that could surpass a typical 1x macro lens but for less cost.

After testing a big group of enlarger lens combinations the 80mm lenses were the shortest focal length I could use without any corner shading.

I am going to post the center crops below but for the outer and edge crops see the full test on my website:
https://www.closeuphotography.com/1x-low-cost-lens-test

Also please sign up for my newsletter if you are interested in getting monthly updates on whats new: https://www.closeuphotography.com/newsletter/

The Lenses

Schneider Componon S 80mm f4 enlarger lens
Plastic BKV-L barrel 6 element enlarger design with a 5 blade iris. These lenses are easy to find on the used market for less than $100 and if you are patient it can found for less than $50 (a CPN S 4/80 sold for only $12 in January 2019).

Schneider Componon 80mm f5.6 enlarger lens
This is the older 15 blade iris single coated design without the S designation. This version is plentiful on Ebay and cost anywhere from $10 to $50 but the condition of these lenses varies quite a bit.

Schneider M-Componon 80mm f4 macro lens
The M-Componon is a special large format macro lens designed for larger than life-size reproduction. Expect to pay $300 - $350 for this lens in excellent shape sometimes as new-old-stock condition. M-Componons are sometimes sold mis-labeled as a normal Componon and can sell for less than $100.

Tamron AF 90mm f/2.8 SP Di macro lens
10 element full frame consumer market 1x macro lens. This is a typical performer with very good to excellent image quality. Clean copies can be found used for around $150 sometimes. I have seen online test sites that rate this lens at a 9.5+ out of 10 for sharpness!

Test Set-up

Camera: Sony A6300, model # ILCE-6300
Sensor size: APS-C. 23.5 × 15.6 mm. 28.21 mm diagonal. 3.92 micron sensor pitch
Flash: Godox TT350s wireless flash x 2 with one Godox X1s 2.4G wireless flash transmitter
Vertical stand: Nikon MM-11 with a Nikon focus block

For this test a stack of images was made with 4 micron steps, and was repeated for each aperture. The sharpest frame was then chosen using Photoshop at 100% actual pixel view. Separate images were selected for center, edge, and corner if needed. Each image was processed in PS CC with identical settings 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. All of the images shown here are single files.


Click on any image below to view the full size version in a new browser window. You can also right click, or two-finger press, and select Save Image As and compare the images in any image viewer.

The Test Area

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Round 1: COMPONON S 4/80 VS COMPONON 5.6/80

COMPONON S 4/80
Front lens: Schneider Kreuznach Componon S 80mm f/4 Componon lens reverse mounted
Rear lens: Schneider Kreuznach Componon S 80mm f/4 Componon lens mounted normally focused at infinity
Nominal and effective aperture: f4

COMPONON 5.6/80
Front lens: Schneider Kreuznach Componon 80mm f5.6 lens reverse mounted
Rear lens: Schneider Kreuznach Componon S 80mm f/4 Componon lens mounted normally focused at infinity
Nominal and effective aperture: f5.6

Be sure to click on the image below to open the full size 1600 pixel image.

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Round 2: COMPONON S 4/80 VS M-COMPONON 4/80

COMPONON S 4/80
Front lens: Schneider Kreuznach Componon S 80mm f/4 Componon lens reverse mounted
Rear lens: Schneider Kreuznach Componon S 80mm f/4 Componon lens mounted normally focused at infinity
Nominal and effective aperture: f4

M-COMPONON 4/80
Front lens: Schneider Kreuznach M-Componon 80mm f4 lens mounted normally
Rear lens: Schneider Kreuznach Componon S 80mm f/4 Componon lens mounted normally focused at infinity
Nominal and effective aperture: f4

Be sure to click on the image below to open the full size 1600 pixel image.

Image

Round 3: COMPONON S 4/80 VS TAMRON 90 SP MACRO LENS

COMPONON S 4/80
Front lens: Schneider Kreuznach Componon S 80mm f/4 Componon lens reverse mounted
Rear lens: Schneider Kreuznach Componon S 80mm f/4 Componon lens mounted normally focused at infinity
Nominal and effective aperture: f4

TAMRON 90
Tamron AF 90mm f/2.8 SP Di macro lens was mounted normally for this test
Nominal aperture: f/5.6
Effective aperture: f11.2
The Tamron was sharpest at f5.6. The image quality was really poor at wider apertures due to big issues with chromatic aberrations.

Be sure to click on the image below to open the full size 1600 pixel image.

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Chromatic Aberrations

These crops are shown at 200% view

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Sharpness

The Componon S stack was very good, not quite as good as the M-Componon but it was maybe 90% of the performance for a fraction of the cost. The Componon f5.6 sharpness was very good but the contrast and color cast were problems. The Tamron was decent but not as good as either of the three 80mm lenses.

CAs

The M-Componon was cleanest of the 4 lenses but the Componon S was very close. The Tamron was the worst of the group.

Overall

The Componon-S was the best performer out of the four when you consider cost. Its less expensive than the Tamron and a better performer at 1x. Its not quite as good as the M-Componon but its a fraction of the cost.

Questions and comments welcome.

Robert

Antal
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Post by Antal »

Thanx a lot for this very useful test.
You are showing once again, that eachone of us must have still a lot of treasures in our stock, we just neeed to do the work to find out the combinations. Whitout buying any lenses! We just have to find out how to get the juice out of them!

Antal
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Post by Antal »

Some questions:
Did you get mag 1x finaly with 80mm rear + 80mm front?
Wouldnt it be possible to use 200mm rear + 200mm front to get the same mag?

Edit: Did some lens testing this morning. 210+180TL =mag 0.8, 150+180TL=1.2
Seems like the equation of: focal length frontlens / focal length rearlens=mag is not so wrong..

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Post by ChrisR »

Very nicely done. I agree with Antal!

Surprisingly when I took the images to PS, and compared with a desaturated version,
I found the cyan colour cast in the CS80/4 image stronger than the green in the C 80/5.6.
I just compared the RGB number differences between the channels.
If you desaturate, they get pretty close.
Can you tell which is which?

S 80/4 over 80/5.6 or
80/5.6 over S 80/4

Image



Decide which you think is which then click the pic.
Chris R

RobertOToole
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Post by RobertOToole »

ChrisR wrote: Can you tell which is which?

S 80/4 over 80/5.6 or
80/5.6 over S 80/4
That's interesting to see Chris, thanks for that.

A couple important notes about the Componon 5.6 that I forgot to include in the post (it is included in the full test on my site).

-The images out of the 5.6/80 CPN were a bit flat but sharpness was right there with the CPN-S and that was a surprise.

-The color and contrast were off so much with this lens, I ran a levels correction to normalize the contrast. Other than this single correction all the other images are processed identically.

-There was no physical damage to the lens or coating to explain the color and contrast issues.

-The lens did have small built up in dust but in my experience that's pretty normal for a lens made in almost 50 years ago! (the lens serial is from 1969)

-Tried to get another copy of the 5.6/80 CPN to test against but the seller was too slow to ship.

Also FYI, since I put this test together I did have a chance to run a borrowed Printing Nikkor 105 on the same target so I will post the results for reference once I get a chance to process them. The 105PN results were interesting but I'm not going to spoil it :D

Robert

RobertOToole
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Post by RobertOToole »

Antal wrote:Some questions:
Did you get mag 1x finaly with 80mm rear + 80mm front?
Wouldnt it be possible to use 200mm rear + 200mm front to get the same mag?
Yes, thats correct.

Using two of the same lenses stacked should cancel out some aberrations also.

I plan to test more lens combinations like this in the future but starting next week until April I will be mostly traveling for work (photography) so its going to be months before I will have time to run anymore tests.
Antal wrote:Edit: Did some lens testing this morning. 210+180TL =mag 0.8, 150+180TL=1.2
Seems like the equation of: focal length frontlens / focal length rearlens=mag is not so wrong..
I did post this formula in the full test on my site:

magnification = focal length of the rear lens / focal length of the front lens

This should be correct.

https://www.closeuphotography.com/1x-low-cost-lens-test

Best,

Robert

RobertOToole
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Post by RobertOToole »

This is a quick crop of the 5.6/80 file with the same identical processing as the other files in the test but without the black point adjustment.

Image

Another 5.6/80 copy is on the way so I can post an update if anyone is interested. I am leaving for Japan on Wed next week so I probably won't see the lens in time.

Robert

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Post by ray_parkhurst »

RobertOToole wrote: Also FYI, since I put this test together I did have a chance to run a borrowed Printing Nikkor 105 on the same target so I will post the results for reference once I get a chance to process them. The 105PN results were interesting but I'm not going to spoil it :D
I'll be interested to see the comparison. I think Lou went down a similar path, stacking pairs of identical lenses to create a 1:1 optimized system (see http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... light=poor).

RobertOToole
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Post by RobertOToole »

ray_parkhurst wrote:
RobertOToole wrote: Also FYI, since I put this test together I did have a chance to run a borrowed Printing Nikkor 105 on the same target so I will post the results for reference once I get a chance to process them. The 105PN results were interesting but I'm not going to spoil it :D
I'll be interested to see the comparison. I think Lou went down a similar path, stacking pairs of identical lenses to create a 1:1 optimized system (see http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... light=poor).
Thanks Ray, I actually have that link to Lou's post and meant to reference it but I forgot. Getting old is tough. :shock:

Sorry Lou! :D

Lou was going for the best image quality possible, my goal was more modest, I was just trying to beat a typical macro lens. :)

Robert

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Post by Lou Jost »

No problem Robert! I suspect there are some really great lens pairs out there waiting to be discovered! The effective apertures can be much lower than those of standard macro lenses used on extensions, and if the lenses are identical, some aberrations might cancel out, as Robert mentioned. (Rik had mentioned that somewhere....)

RobertOToole
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Post by RobertOToole »

Lou Jost wrote:No problem Robert! I suspect there are some really great lens pairs out there waiting to be discovered! The effective apertures can be much lower than those of standard macro lenses used on extensions, and if the lenses are identical, some aberrations might cancel out, as Robert mentioned. (Rik had mentioned that somewhere....)
Well thanks for giving me all the excellent ideas and encouragement Lou!

I do remember Charles Krebs also mentioning something about trying out stacking and some comments on aberrations and stacking fast lenses a few years ago. All of my attempts with fast lenses has been failures so far. I am sticking with line-scan and enlarger lenses, so far, so good :D

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