Coastal Optical lenses vs Scanner 8000ED lens at 1X

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chuong nguyen
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Coastal Optical lenses vs Scanner 8000ED lens at 1X

Post by chuong nguyen »

I got these four massive lenses custom made by Coastal Optical System some time ago from a surplus vendor but never had time to test them.

The black lenses on the left are actually infinity objectives. They can be coupled for mag between 1X to 2X. The tall one from the picture is two 105 f2.38 coupled together to test against the Nikon (bottom right).

Image

The intended use and performance of the system is described in this article:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1456328/

Yesterday the CO lenses were tested against the best lens I have at 1X, the scanner Nik 8000ED. In this test I coupled two 105 f2.38 lenses together with an aperture in between to step down 1 f stop. The camera was Olympus OMD EM-5 II in hi res mode. Stacked 20 images at 30 micron step.

Overall - 5$ Canadian Bill.
Image

Center:Top A, Bottom B
Image
Image

Corner: Top A Bottom B
Image
Image

Please help decide which one you would prefer, A ob B ?

Chuong

ray_parkhurst
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Post by ray_parkhurst »

The Nikon has better contrast in both center and corner, but the Coastal is sharper in the corner.

chuong nguyen
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Post by chuong nguyen »

ray_parkhurst wrote:The Nikon has better contrast in both center and corner, but the Coastal is sharper in the corner.
I agree. BTW, top is Coastal. I wonder what is the logic behind infinity design of the Coastal system vs single lens ?
Chuong

ray_parkhurst
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Post by ray_parkhurst »

Take a look at Lou Jost's work on this subject here:

http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... highlight=

Lou Jost
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Post by Lou Jost »

The CO lens pair must have cost many thousands of dollars, while the Scanner Nikon ED costs as little as $200. And the image circle of the Nikon is 60 mm in diameter! I am very impressed by my Scanner Nikon. However my copy of the Printing Nikkor 105 A version is even better. (My copy, which I got from Ray Parkhurst, is the copy that was tested at coinimaging.com).

I like your use of coupled lenses, my favorite way to get images in this magnification range.

chuong nguyen
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Post by chuong nguyen »

Lou Jost wrote:The CO lens pair must have cost many thousands of dollars, while the Scanner Nikon ED costs as little as $200. And the image circle of the Nikon is 60 mm in diameter! I am very impressed by my Scanner Nikon. However my copy of the Printing Nikkor 105 A version is even better. (My copy, which I got from Ray Parkhurst, is the copy that was tested at coinimaging.com).

I like your use of coupled lenses, my favorite way to get images in this magnification range.
Lou, another nice option with coupled lenses is to mount on the OM zoom 40-150 2.8 for in-camera stacking. IQ is not the best, but very fast and easy when on the road.

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Post by RobertOToole »

Lou Jost wrote:...I am very impressed by my Scanner Nikon. However my copy of the Printing Nikkor 105 A version is even better. (My copy, which I got from Ray Parkhurst, is the copy that was tested at coinimaging.com)....
Hi Lou,

It would be nice to see the PN105A head to head with the SNED 14 element.

If you look at Mark's test of your lens the performance, everything but corner sharpness, peaks at 0.66X. Only at 1X do the corners catch up but then the resolution and sharpness drop a little.

I wonder why Nikon optimized the lens for 0.66X and what range is the SNED 14E optimized for?

Anyway at that level of image quality they are both capable of making amazing images I guess.

Robert

Lou Jost
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Post by Lou Jost »

Robert, I'll try to do that test soon. I think the Scanner Nikkor from the Coolscan 8000 has to be optimized for edge to edge sharpness on the 60mm line sensor, and since the film is also 60mm wide, the optimum m should be 1:1.

Mark Goodman noted that the PN 105 seemed to sacrifice center resolution for field flatness at 1:1. Forum member nathanm noted somewhere here that the PN105 is designed for 1:1 copying of 70mm film.

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Post by RobertOToole »

Lou Jost wrote:Robert, I'll try to do that test soon. I think the Scanner Nikkor from the Coolscan 8000 has to be optimized for edge to edge sharpness on the 60mm line sensor, and since the film is also 60mm wide, the optimum m should be 1:1.

Mark Goodman noted that the PN 105 seemed to sacrifice center resolution for field flatness at 1:1. Forum member nathanm noted somewhere here that the PN105 is designed for 1:1 copying of 70mm film.
Great, the results should be interesting.

Problem I always have is what to use as a target?

Ideally it would be best to shoot something flat to avoid having to stack and it should have lots of fine detail of course.

I am sure the results will be superb for both of them.

Robert

Lou Jost
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Post by Lou Jost »

I think lenses should be tested with the same techniques as their intended use. If a lens is going to be used for stacking, best to test it in a stack, even though this adds confounding variables. Testing a lens by taking a single shot of a flat subject emphasizes different factors than the ones we need for a good stacking lens. When the target is flat, field flatness will determine the corner sharpness in a single shot, but in stacking we don't care about field flatness as long as the corners are sharp in at least one frame. Likewise longitudinal chromatic aberrations can disappear when stacking. Though if a lens does perform well on a flat target, it ought to do well in stacking too.

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Post by rjlittlefield »

Lou Jost wrote:I think lenses should be tested with the same techniques as their intended use. If a lens is going to be used for stacking, best to test it in a stack, even though this adds confounding variables.
...
Though if a lens does perform well on a flat target, it ought to do well in stacking too.
I agree on both points, but want to add that stacking can sometimes make aberrations obvious that would be overlooked in single shots. The one that comes to mind is astigmatism processed using one of the pyramid methods, in which the combination of radial and tangential smears from different focus planes turns into crosses in the stacked result.

--Rik

RobertOToole
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Post by RobertOToole »

Lou Jost wrote:I think lenses should be tested with the same techniques as their intended use. If a lens is going to be used for stacking, best to test it in a stack, even though this adds confounding variables. Testing a lens by taking a single shot of a flat subject emphasizes different factors than the ones we need for a good stacking lens. When the target is flat, field flatness will determine the corner sharpness in a single shot, but in stacking we don't care about field flatness as long as the corners are sharp in at least one frame. Likewise longitudinal chromatic aberrations can disappear when stacking. Though if a lens does perform well on a flat target, it ought to do well in stacking too.
For personal testing, when I buy a new lens, like the scanner-nikkor, I shoot a stack but not to stack the images for DOF but for focus bracketing to find the sharpest center and sharpest corner frames.

Stacking those images and using the stacked image to judge the image quality would hide huge faults like serious LoCAs, things that I am looking to avoid in a new macro lens.

A lens that makes a super clean and sharp single image will make a beautiful stack.

Lou Jost
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Post by Lou Jost »

The Scanner Nikkor and Printing Nikkors are really special for their lack of color aberrations. Wish more lenses were like them!

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