Carl Zeiss Fluar 10x 0.50 NA lens and tubelens

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palaephatus
Posts: 11
Joined: Fri Feb 05, 2016 4:47 pm

Carl Zeiss Fluar 10x 0.50 NA lens and tubelens

Post by palaephatus »

Having acquired an uv-optimized (or optically primitive) objective, the Carl Zeiss Fluar 10x 0.50 NA (https://www.micro-shop.zeiss.com/en/us/ ... r-10x-0.50), I am somewhat unsure about both usability (short working distance, 0.17 mm cover glass) as well as the selection of tubelens.

As far as can be seen from Thorlabs, the tubelens for Carl Zeiss objectives is 165mm focal length, however, the transmission curve for the Thorlabs offering is not optimal in the UV - and the tubelens from Thorlabs is too expensive.

Originally, the lens was part of a rather expensive, now very obsolete, lab-on-chip platfom, much like the OEM Nikon 20x 0.75 NA objectives flooding a certain online sales platform.

Does anyone have experience with the Fluar series of objectives (preferably in the UV)?
Any suggestions as to a UV-transmitting, non expensive tubelens?
Does the Zeiss ICS system require a correcting tubelens (for multispectral use)?

palaephatus

Ichthyophthirius
Posts: 1152
Joined: Thu Mar 07, 2013 5:24 am

Re: Carl Zeiss Fluar 10x 0.50 NA lens and tubelens

Post by Ichthyophthirius »

Hi,

Zeiss ICS requires a compensating tube lens. https://www.photomacrography.net/forum/ ... p?p=258382 It's explained here: userpix/3229_Zeiss_ICS_1.jpg You will need a tube lens plus the correct tube lens (they vary in diameter because if differences in distance from the objective to the tube lens.

As you can see in your link, the objective is optimised for high UV transmission (down to 340 nm) and the correction of the resulting image is not very good. I don't know if the brightfield UV image is good. Usually, these objectives were used for UV fluorescence excitation with the blue emission being imaged by the objective.

Zeiss had Ultrafluar objectives for imaging in UV. https://www.lambdaphoto.co.uk/pdfs/Zeis ... ctives.pdf So it's worth finding out what method you want to use. If you want to use monochrome brightfield UV, maybe you have a wider choice of possible OEM tube lenses?

Regards, Ichty

Macro_Cosmos
Posts: 1511
Joined: Mon Jan 15, 2018 9:23 pm
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Re: Carl Zeiss Fluar 10x 0.50 NA lens and tubelens

Post by Macro_Cosmos »

That 40x linked above, as I've learned is a "water dipping" objective. There's some differences. A user mentions it too.
https://www.microscopyu.com/microscopy- ... objectives
I played around with it for a week, then returned it.

UV-specific (and IR) TLs are usually exotic and expensive. I personally think it's far easier to work with modern objectives from Olympus and Nikon, since they are corrected as standalones. Occasionally, Mit UV objectives sell for cheap prices too.

palaephatus
Posts: 11
Joined: Fri Feb 05, 2016 4:47 pm

Re: Carl Zeiss Fluar 10x 0.50 NA lens and tubelens

Post by palaephatus »

My thanks to both Ichthyophthirius and Macro_Cosmos for their very pertinent comments. Based on these I think that the Fluar 10x will for the time being come to rest next to other unusual (and doubtless, in the right setting, wonderful) objectives like the Beck reflex objective. I think that the time may have come to acquire a Raynox "tubelens" set and measure the transmission spectra.

Kind regards

Palaephatus

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