Nikon Plan Apo 4x/0.20 on eBay

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RogelioMoreno
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Nikon Plan Apo 4x/0.20 on eBay

Post by RogelioMoreno »

Hi,

On eBay Nikon Plan Apo 4X, the seller is asking $500 with buy now, too much for me.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Nikon-microscope-Pl ... 1c10748134

Rogelio

bvalente
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Post by bvalente »

that's a lot - thought the buy now is gone with the first bid

I think of a 4x as being roughly equivalent to my luminar 40mm. Is that accurate?

Cheers

Brian

ChrisR
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Post by ChrisR »


rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

bvalente wrote:I think of a 4x as being roughly equivalent to my luminar 40mm. Is that accurate?
Depends on what "equivalent" means. The link given by ChrisR shows that the tested Luminar has lower resolution.

One reason (not the whole explanation) is that the Luminar 40 mm has a smaller aperture. It's rated at f/4. At 4X, that's roughly NA 0.1. A highest quality microscope objective at NA 0.20 would have theoretically twice as much resolution. The tradeoff is in the field size covered with a high quality image. The microscope objective will cover a microscope eyepiece, roughly 25 mm diameter, angle of view about 9 degrees. The Luminar is specified as covering 27 degrees. So if you wanted to cover a larger field with a larger sensor, still at 4X, the Luminar would be more suitable.

--Rik

PauloM
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Post by PauloM »

There's now also a Nikon CF N Plan 4/0.13 260561037864
Objective is being advertised as appropriate for photomacrography, perhaps it's from one our members?

ChrisR
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Post by ChrisR »

I've been foolin around with these.
It's a work in progress, but ...
The NA 0.20 is sharper than the 0.13 in its designed range, but not much.
At magnification 7x, the 0.13 covers a 24x36 frame quite well, but the 0.20 doesn't. The corners are bad, coma I think. DX coverage is OK though.
At 7x, an Olympus 20mm is about on a par with the NA0.20, and of course covers the frame.

The NA0.13 is certainly good value (don't pay over about $100!) but there are plenty of good approx 40mm lenses with adjustable apertures. Diffraction is only just coming in to play at these low mags, so flexibility with dof is useful.

I'm constantly surprised how much easier it is to see performance differences on the back of the camera in expanded Live View, or review, than on the computer screen. For example, if I stop the Olympus f2 down to f2.8, it's clearly not quite as sharp, in the middle, with less difference at frame edge. On computer, it's much harder to see. I assume this implies some added blur somewhere. Even so, if it's that hard to tell, full frame on a 24 inch screen, it's splitting hairs.

PauloM
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Post by PauloM »

Personally, I'm very curious to see how much both those objectives fetch.
I own a 4 0.13 already, so i'm not going to buy another one unless its price is too low to let pass.
I would like to own the apo 0.20, but the current price is already beyond my comfort zone. I hope it finds a good home; with a bit of luck it will go to one of our more skilled members who will present us with some astonishing pictures taken with it.

bvalente
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Post by bvalente »

should have bought it at $500 - it's up to $710 now


Cheers

Brian

mgoodm3
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Post by mgoodm3 »

$974

Too much for me to buy it.

PauloM
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Post by PauloM »

US $974.00 :shock:

ChrisR
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Post by ChrisR »

Anyone want mine? $973. 8)

I bet we see a flock of them appearing now!

ChrisR
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Post by ChrisR »

Here's a quick comparison. I intend to do more in a current thread adding some other lenses.
It's a printed target, vertical and horizontal straight dotted lines 1mm apart. Detail was lacking so I sprinkled it with pencil-lead scrapings, some of which drop off between images.

The dark blue line is about where the DX fame would be. The light blue box is what's cut out from the full size pic you see if you click it, comparing 3 lenses. So on the slices, centre is on the right, and FX and DX frame edges are both towards the left

Image

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

Excellent comparison, Chris. I would not have thought to try pencil-lead scrapings, but they work very well.

I agree with your assessment: OM 20/2 seems about as sharp as the 4X 0.20 at image center, and notably better farther out. That's reassuring. The 20/2 I purchased on eBay several years ago was far from cheap, but at $480 it still seems like a pretty good deal for pushing the limits of resolution.

--Rik

dmillard
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Post by dmillard »

I like your test set-up Chris, and it clearly shows that your Olympus OM Zuiko 20mm lens is sharper than the Nikon Plan Apo 4/0.20 that you tested. The Oly lenses might now start selling for the astronomical price fetched by the Nikon objective on eBay today! :) It would be nice (although very unlikely) if you had the opportunity to test several 4X Plan Apo objectives to see where yours stood in terms of sample variability.

David

ChrisR
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Post by ChrisR »

If more 4x/0.20s pop up for $99, then yes, I shall grab them. ALL. Purely in the interests of research of course ;). (Perhaps mine's a lemon, though it's showing better than the 0.13).
I'm struck by how much better the 4x lens is here, at 7x, than it was at 9x in the other thread , in comparison with the Olympus lens. Perhaps at 4x it'll do better. (If you bought that lens on ebay, believe it!) It's easier for me to support things on bellows, and 7x was as short as I could go for the Olympus 20mm. It's at the end of the suggested magnification range for that lens, perhaps the 38/F2.8 will be better.

I was pleased with the pencil lead. It can of course be crunched up finer, eg in a teaspoon. A graphite pencil should show the layered structure....

:-k A 0.01mm grating would show spaced at 4.6 of my pixels at 4x, so that'll be hitting the stops on what I can see.
(confirmed here: http://www.microscopyu.com/tutorials/ja ... alculator/)
I won't see anywhere near the theoretical max resolution of 1.4 microns.

I think the 0.20 NA objective is f2.5, about the same as the Olympus f2 with pmf taken into account.

I can see why Rik is chuffed with the Oly 20/f2. Mine was £440, about $700 at the time, but they aren't very common.

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