Noritsu film scanner lens

Dennis Pall · Post by **Dennis Pall** » Thu Jun 04, 2020 2:56 pm

Found this Noritsu lens assy on Ebay from a surplus seller. Seller had it listed for almost 2 years before I bought it.

Scanner for >135F, 135P,135H, 135HD, 120 (6x4.5, 6x6, 6x7, 6x8, 6x9,), 110(13 mm × 17mm), APS film format. http://minilab.com.ua/en/description/noritsu/qss29/ )

Probably have to order a custom M42 adapter before I can test it properly.

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Thu Jun 04, 2020 5:25 pm

Dennis, welcome aboard!

That's a very interesting lens, with a bit scary number of gears. Given the variety of formats, I'm thinking that positions of multiple gears have to be coordinated to simultaneously set focal length and minimize aberrations.

What sort of documentation do you have for the lens?

--Rik

physicsmajor · Post by **physicsmajor** » Thu Jun 04, 2020 9:36 pm

I would speculate the smaller travel helicoid probably controls focus, while the longer travel helicoid controls zoom in this lens. The third (middle) gear should be the iris.

Basing this on the design of the zoom Micro-Nikkor 70-180mm, which I have an sample of and use often - it has 18 elements in 14 groups to accomplish what it does, and separates focus from zoom. Here's Nikon's own commentary on this rather unique (and now out of production) lens; see section II: Lens Configuration where it shows the focusing and zooming happens very differently and in similar areas to where your helicoids are.

https://imaging.nikon.com/history/story/0018/index.htm

chris_ma · Post by **chris_ma** » Thu Jun 04, 2020 11:00 pm

Interesting link, thanks for that.

The last section about the aperture is specially interesting, somehow they managed to keep Effective aperture constant regardless of magnification. Plus, the aperture of the 60mm, the 105mm and the 200mm nikon lenses are affected differently - I always thought the effective aperture is directly related to magnification but that made me realize it‘s more complex (apparently it‘s about lens Pupil Magnification)

Lou Jost · Post by **Lou Jost** » Thu Jun 04, 2020 11:22 pm

I suppose you can always keep effective aperture constant while zooming or focusing if you connect the iris so that it is partly closed at infinity and at the widest zoom setting, and so that it opens as you zoom in or focus closer. That would be a cheap trick, though, and perhaps Nikon does it optically, which would be a lot more useful. You might be able to watch the aperture as you zoom or focus. Does it close or open while you do that?

physicsmajor · Post by **physicsmajor** » Thu Jun 04, 2020 11:38 pm

No cheap tricks, the 70-180mm aperture is entirely independent of focusing or zooming.

And in complete manual focus mode it does indeed maintain constant both plane of focus and exposure through the entire zoom range. Extremely convenient for general use.

Scarodactyl · Post by **Scarodactyl** » Thu Jun 04, 2020 11:47 pm

I think that is standard for higher end stereo microscopes and macroscopes, to maintain the same brightness at all zoom levels. I believe Nikon does that both optically and with an iris, depending on the system.

Dennis Pall · Post by **Dennis Pall** » Fri Jun 05, 2020 1:13 am

rjlittlefield wrote:Dennis, welcome aboard!

That's a very interesting lens, with a bit scary number of gears. Given the variety of formats, I'm thinking that positions of multiple gears have to be coordinated to simultaneously set focal length and minimize aberrations.

What sort of documentation do you have for the lens?

--Rik

Thanks! Rik you are correct I am sure. Hopefully I can set focal length first and then control aberration.

Edit : both helicoids seem to focus from what I can see. Longer one seems to correct for aberration and moves focus at the same time?

Noritsu software settings allows you to control "Chroma" for minimizing aberrations. (https://www.gostreetphoto.com/noritsu-l ... er-review/).
Max Optical Resolution - 24 million pixels, 6048×4011.

I have seen Noritsu minilab printer lenses that say "Nikon EL-Zoom-NIKKOR for Noritsu 99-230mm F8" and wonder if Nikon made these scanner lenses for Noritsu.

Dennis Pall · Post by **Dennis Pall** » Fri Jun 05, 2020 3:16 am

physicsmajor wrote:I would speculate the smaller travel helicoid probably controls focus, while the longer travel helicoid controls zoom in this lens. The third (middle) gear should be the iris.

Basing this on the design of the zoom Micro-Nikkor 70-180mm, which I have an sample of and use often - it has 18 elements in 14 groups to accomplish what it does, and separates focus from zoom. Here's Nikon's own commentary on this rather unique (and now out of production) lens; see section II: Lens Configuration where it shows the focusing and zooming happens very differently and in similar areas to where your helicoids are.

https://imaging.nikon.com/history/story/0018/index.htm

Both seem to control focus as I am not seeing any zoom/magnification effect. I guess the magnification part was done by rail moving away from sensor. Longer helicoid seems to control aberration and focus from what I see. Unfortunately I cant test it further until I get a proper adapter that wont leak light.

Iris open:

https://i.imgur.com/GIXC0G2.jpg

Stopped down f5.6- f8?:

https://i.imgur.com/gP1igdB.jpg

Stopped down f11 - f16?

https://i.imgur.com/3iU2gQz.jpg

physicsmajor · Post by **physicsmajor** » Fri Jun 05, 2020 2:45 pm

Nikon was certainly involved in this minilab's scanning process at some level.

The Noritsu link you shared in the first post very specifically touts it has "DIGITAL ICE" technology for scanning, which is a Nikon trademark. At bare minimum they had to license that from Nikon. The digital ICE tech scans twice, once in visible light and once in infrared. Dust etc. looks different in infrared, so the comparison let them attempt to subtract/remove it.

As a result, that lens is probably corrected into infrared. It's possible Nikon designed it, though that'd be harder to verify unless they left marks or QC codes.

Dennis Pall · Post by **Dennis Pall** » Fri Jun 05, 2020 4:21 pm

physicsmajor wrote:Nikon was certainly involved in this minilab's scanning process at some level.

The Noritsu link you shared in the first post very specifically touts it has "DIGITAL ICE" technology for scanning, which is a Nikon trademark. At bare minimum they had to license that from Nikon. The digital ICE tech scans twice, once in visible light and once in infrared. Dust etc. looks different in infrared, so the comparison let them attempt to subtract/remove it.

As a result, that lens is probably corrected into infrared. It's possible Nikon designed it, though that'd be harder to verify unless they left marks or QC codes.

Thanks for sharing information.

I thought that digital ice was developed by Kodak(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_ICE).

You are correct when you say that this lens is corrected for infrared as digital ice would not work without it. Did not even think that far to make the connection.

No markings, or QC on the lens so probably will never know.

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Fri Jun 05, 2020 4:23 pm

physicsmajor wrote:...the 70-180mm aperture is entirely independent of focusing or zooming.

And in complete manual focus mode it does indeed maintain constant both plane of focus and exposure through the entire zoom range.

A few more thoughts on this issue...

If you have a fixed entrance cone, then as you increase magnification, the fixed amount of light gets spread out farther at the sensor and becomes proportionally less intense.

So, in order to get constant exposure despite variable magnification, it has to be the case that the entrance cone changes width.

Whether that's accomplished entirely by moving optical elements in front of the diaphragm, or adjusting the diaphragm, or some combination of both, is a matter for the optical designer to decide.

The "simple" way to get constant aperture is to place the diaphragm behind any moving elements of the lens. That way the aperture always looks the same, from the standpoint of the sensor. In the diagram at https://imgsv.imaging.nikon.com/history ... g/img1.jpg , embedded in https://imaging.nikon.com/history/story/0018/index.htm , it looks to me like the aperture is located just to the left ("in front of") the last group of elements, which are bracketed and labeled as half of the zooming pair. So, I'm guessing that they took this approach, with neither the diaphragm nor the rear group moving with focus or zooming.

I've placed scare quotes around "simple" because although this approach immediately meets the design goal of providing constant aperture, I expect it imposes additional constraints on the rest of the design. If not, then I have trouble imagining why it's mostly high end lenses that behave this way.

--Rik

physicsmajor · Post by **physicsmajor** » Fri Jun 05, 2020 4:42 pm

You're right Dennis, Nikon didn't develop digital ICE. Not sure why I thought that. But it does have to be infrared corrected, at least if was was the film scanning lens used with digital ICE.

Might be a beast to use in the field, but on a body with the IR filter removed from the sensor you could have some interesting potential. Can you get infinity focus?

Dennis Pall · Post by **Dennis Pall** » Fri Jun 05, 2020 5:30 pm

physicsmajor wrote:You're right Dennis, Nikon didn't develop digital ICE. Not sure why I thought that. But it does have to be infrared corrected, at least if was was the film scanning lens used with digital ICE.

Might be a beast to use in the field, but on a body with the IR filter removed from the sensor you could have some interesting potential. Can you get infinity focus?

You probably read it here, or some other forum as I remember reading something similar not long ago.

Infinity focus is not possible, just confirmed.

edit> this lens smokes the makro symmar 120mm HM