Palo Alto Book Sale finds

A forum to ask questions, post setups, and generally discuss anything having to do with photomacrography and photomicroscopy.

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ray_parkhurst
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Palo Alto Book Sale finds

Post by ray_parkhurst »

I'm not sure this is the right sub-forum for this, but I figure it's not too far off given the subject matter...

After shopping for groceries I drove by the PA Friends book sale and decided to stop in for the first time in a year or more. I like this sale since it's fairly large, and has a lot of eclectic stuff (they have an "ephemera" section) in addition to a great book selection that is well-organized. I looked through the sale fairly briskly, and didn't find anything I couldn't live without, and as I was leaving I found the photography section near the checkout. 15 min later I had found a few nice books:

SPSE Handbook of Photographic Science and Engineering
Neblette's Handbook of Photography and Reprography
Photographic Lens Manual and Directory (Neblette)
Photographic Lenses (Neblette)
Microphotography (Stevens)

Lots of good reference and easy-reading material in this lot.

edited to add: moved to the Technique sub-forum

Harald
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Post by Harald »

Hi there Ray,
I have a couple of second hand stores near me. I check them from time to time. Amazing what you can find in those stores at a very nice price.

I think you did a great find :D
Kind Regards
Harald

Lier Fotoklubb / NSFF
AFIAP / CPS
BGF / GMV
http://www.500px.com/blender11

ray_parkhurst
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Post by ray_parkhurst »

Thanks Harald. Indeed it's fun to find in these sales.

I started perusing the Microphotography text and found some nice early info on the Ultra-Micro-Nikkors. The text was from 1968, and devotes 3 pages to these lenses. A table shows some specs for these lenses along with availability dates, starting in 1962 with the 105/2.8, then 1964 for the 30/1.2, 1965 for the 125/2.8, and "In Preparation" as of 1968 for the 155/4, 55/2, and 28/1.8. I see with some interest the field size and reproduction ratios:

FL...Ratio...Field

105...30...24
30...25...2
125...25...28
155...10...42

This means the original photomasks for the 105mm were 720mm in diameter (!!). For the 155, this is reduced to 420mm, still very big.

I remember peeling rubies I designed in the late 80's, for use in making thin film circuits. These were big, around 500mm across, so perhaps they were being used with a Nikon stepper and 105/2.8 UMN. I had no interest in those days how the rubies were processed into the final circuits.

Lou Jost
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Post by Lou Jost »

Ray, was there any information about any "Nikon Engineering 5x" lenses? They look like they may have been the immediate successors of the Ultra-Micro-Nikkors.

There were two for sale recently on eBay. I ended up buying one. Don't know what wavelength it is optimized for. But it looks potentially very good. One odd thing-- it has an aperture ring labeled 1 15 2 24 and I thought these were in stops, with decimal points omitted, but in fact the aperture is widest when the ring is set to "24" and it closes down as the ring is turned to "1". I don't understand the logic of that.

ray_parkhurst
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Post by ray_parkhurst »

Nothing on those lenses, as I think they are successors to the UMN's by at least 10 years. At the time the book was written even the UMN's had not all been released.

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