I haven’t really been ready to check this message boards after Robert’s passing. I’m very glad to see the outpouring of community support here. I haven’t been active on the site here for a while but Robert and I were always in close touch here in Los Angeles over phone calls, emails and meet ups and...

Maybe I missed the discussion. What's the verdict on the Xenon-Sapphires used without their designated line-scan beamsplitter prism? From SK's documentation: the optics are different on a prism model to compensate for the prism. And the logical thought would be that performance of prism lens used wi...

ray_parkhurst wrote:

kds315* wrote:
I just missed one by the minute sold in Germany while chatting with the seller!!! Darn...

Hah! That's the first I've heard of the actual existence of this lens. Too bad you missed it.

Likewise, first time I’ve heard of one for sale. Tragedy! How much did it go for?

I finally found the newer 150mm Printing-Nikkor with the 86mm image circle... Now I just need to find time to mount it and test it out... In fact I still haven't really shot with the 1/4X - 4X version though I did figure out a somewhat makeshift mounting solution for it. Too many lenses, too little ...

I have a Phase One IQ150 with the same sensor and have amassed a large collection of lenses that work with the 44x33 format over the years... The 105mm f2.8 Printing-Nikkor N (or Rayfact version) has a 60mm IC and is pretty much unbeatable at 1X. Just know that the quality at the edges quickly falls...

Well, sold pretty quickly at that price. Hopefully it was someone on the boards here.

I've listed one of my few remaining Macro Varon's on eBay. This one has cosmetic damage but is optically excellent, image quality is 100% what it should be. In fairly extensive testing I see no difference between this lens and every other Macro Varon I've owned. https://www.ebay.com/itm/202507260769...

Received the 150 PN variable last night. Confirmed that Ray's extension calc's were correct (no surprise). What was interesting was that the IC at 1:1 on a 44x33 sensor was not as bad as I thought it would be... I had a 150mm PN fixed 1:1 for a brief time, the lens had very bad astigmatism (radially...

Ahhh, thanks for the correction!!! I didn't know the old spec sheets reference flange to focal distance at infinity. The newer Rayfact drawings all have the flange to focal distance at the rated magnification. http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/userpix/4813_105_PN_Rayfact_1.png I just put a 105mm...

Hey Ray! One thing to remember is the Printing-Nikkors have non-standard calculations for back focus. The 105mm PN has a back focus of 55.1mm at 1x and the 150mm PN has a backfocus of 74.5mm at 1x. About 1/4 the rough calculation of 2x focal length for 1:1 on most lenses (and strangely about the hal...

Greetings! I have the floating optics 150mm Printing-Nikkor (1/4-4X) en route to me now. I wanted to query the community on experience with this lens and see if anyone can confirm my suspicions on the quality and image circle. Based on coinimaging tests up to around 1.4X the corner sharpness improve...

Thanks for the link Lou! Your technique for despeckling is fascinating and informative of the challenges present for using laser light sources for imaging. I'll respond to that thread later. The forensics lasers are overkill (to put it mildly) for macro imaging. They would be better suited for somet...

To be honest there is an opportunistic motivation to assemble so much gear in one place and see what kind of creative imaging could happen :) To really use it I will have to read up on fluorescence imaging and forensic techniques to justify the favors I would have to pull and time I would devote to ...

RE: Green light: I was just visiting a friend who has a few of these lasers: https://www.arrowheadforensics.com/a-1143728-coherent-tracer-laser-8w-green-532nm.html These would be the ultimate green laser light source. Fairly low speckle but I'm still wondering how the light quality would work photog...

Lou Jost wrote:I can quickly look at the IC later today for you.

Any luck checking IC? How's it going with the lens? If it has a 55mm IC it would just barely cover a 44x33 sensor.