Can Anyone ID This Mystery Lens?

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RobertOToole
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Can Anyone ID This Mystery Lens?

Post by RobertOToole »

Image

Has anyone seen or used a lens like this? It has a 50mm OD and is 75mm long.

Any ideas, Scanner lens, collimator, relay, Scan lens?

The heavy duty design and white mark looks like a scanner lens.

Picked it up on Ebay for $29 as a new-old-stock objective lens, seller has no details or source.

Handheld with flash and with the lens taped on a set of tubes :shock:
it looks to be LoCA free so there is potential :D

Update:

After some quick measurements it looks like the lens is 95mm f/3.5 lens.


To find the focal length I used a simple formula:

FL = Added Extension / ( New Magnification - Old Magnification )

FL = +43 / (2.05x - 1.6x )

FL = 95mm

To measure the speed of the lens I used a quick method from Rik (sorry I don't have a link for the source).

F-number = FL / Aperture

F-number = 95mm / 27.4mm

F = 3.46

To measure the aperture, I grabbed a body and a macro lens, focus on the lens pupil using focus peaking, record an image, flip the lens over being careful not to change focus, shoot another image, than shoot a ruler for reference being careful not to change focus/extension between frames.

Update 2
Updated the thread with test comparison results, look at the post near the bottom of page one.

Thanks for looking,

Robert
Last edited by RobertOToole on Thu Sep 20, 2018 3:16 pm, edited 3 times in total.

Lou Jost
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Post by Lou Jost »

It certainly looks like it could be a serious contender!

mjkzz
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Post by mjkzz »

[edited]Your lens is very similar to the one I got which is a OEM version of TopCon lens, it has similar dimensions and the inside is grayish white (strange)[/edited]

Wow, I did not know you are interested in these unknown lenses, here are some of mine, I actually used two of those lenses (the two on the black foam)

Image

Here is a photo taken with the black one on that black foam. Not sure if I can call it APO, but very little CA (at least to me) and it covers full frame! Pretty good at around 1x
Image
Last edited by mjkzz on Tue Sep 18, 2018 11:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

RobertOToole
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Post by RobertOToole »

And I thought I had a few mystery lenses, you have a nice collection there Peter! Some of those look like they have potential!

It's always fun to get nice results for a no-name lens isn't it?

RobertOToole
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Post by RobertOToole »

Lou Jost wrote:It certainly looks like it could be a serious contender!
Yes, and the lens is also pretty fast it turns out.

FL = Added Extension / ( New Magnification - Old Magnification )

FL = +43 / (2.05x - 1.6x )

FL = 95mm

F-number = FL / Aperture

F-number = 95mm / 27.4mm

F = 3.46

So its a 95mm f/3.5 lens

:D

mjkzz
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Post by mjkzz »

added to my last post, but here it goes again: Your lens is very similar to one I got which is an OEM version of TopCon lens as I was told, it has similar dimensions and the inside is grayish white (strange) with slight purple-orange coating. I can focus it to infinity and use it as regular lens.

Image

mjkzz
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Post by mjkzz »

RobertOToole wrote:
Lou Jost wrote:It certainly looks like it could be a serious contender!
Yes, and the lens is also pretty fast it turns out.

FL = Added Extension / ( New Magnification - Old Magnification )

FL = +43 / (2.05x - 1.6x )

FL = 95mm

F-number = FL / Aperture

F-number = 95mm / 27.4mm

F = 3.46

So its a 95mm f/3.5 lens

:D
Yeah. so similar to the one I just posted, mine is an OEM TopCon lens as I was told.

dolmadis
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Post by dolmadis »

Hi Robert

Was it a one off or did the seller have stock?

BR

John

RobertOToole
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Post by RobertOToole »

dolmadis wrote:Hi Robert

Was it a one off or did the seller have stock?

BR

John
Hi John,

I did check and the seller only had a single lens like this.

Sorry about that.

Robert

RobertOToole
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Post by RobertOToole »

Image

Scanner lens X with PrimeFilm 3650u and Minolta Elite 5400 lenses for scale.

My first try with this lens was at 0.8x and the center was great but the corners were not even close.

The results at 1.6x to 2.1x are fantastic, no CAs, flat field, excellent resolution and no vignetting on APS-C.

After seeing the results I made with this lens side by side with the MPE65, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the lens to a friend. Mounting the lens isn't easy, you will have to buy an adapter, but its worth it. The only problem with this lens is finding one!

These are test results at 1.6x with Canon MP-E crops for reference.

Center 100% crops:

Image

Both look excellent but the Scanner lens X has better resolution, look at the tiny hash marks. The Canon MPE also shows CAs, where the SLX is CA free. Look at the lettering S311001A and the small blue square to the right. You can see red fringing in the left side of the MPE frame.

Corner 100% crops:

Image

Both lenses are also excellent in the extreme corner area, the SLX may have a slight advantage in sharpness here but they are very close.

Overall the Scanner Lens X has better CA control and is sharper. The Canon is used here at f/4,5 for best results, the sharpness is no better at f/3.2 and f/3,5 and the CAs are worse.


Image

Looks like there are still excellent finds on Ebay even in a post Minolta 5400 world :D

Questions, comments welcome.

Robert
Last edited by RobertOToole on Thu Sep 20, 2018 4:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

ray_parkhurst
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Post by ray_parkhurst »

Looks great!

The 50mm OD would work well with Raf's 51mm adapter. I find that adapter to be very useful indeed. I have been able to mount several lenses with it for testing, and my Scanner-Nikkor sits in one permanently.

I'd love to know how the lens performs vs the 85MV at 2x. I've been using the 95PN for my 2x stitching work, as it does everything well at 2x, but the 85MV is pretty much its equal. I plan to do some panoramas with the 85MV to compare. I'm hoping the distortion is as good as the 95PN, since that can cause some odd stitching issues. Would be nice to know if this lens could do as well or better at 2x.

RobertOToole
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Post by RobertOToole »

ray_parkhurst wrote:Looks great!

The 50mm OD would work well with Raf's 51mm adapter. I find that adapter to be very useful indeed. I have been able to mount several lenses with it for testing, and my Scanner-Nikkor sits in one permanently.
Thats exactly what I used Ray. I also used 2 layers of stainless steel shim tape to tighten it up and to give the set-screws something to bite.
I'd love to know how the lens performs vs the 85MV at 2x. I've been using the 95PN for my 2x stitching work, as it does everything well at 2x, but the 85MV is pretty much its equal. I plan to do some panoramas with the 85MV to compare. I'm hoping the distortion is as good as the 95PN, since that can cause some odd stitching issues. Would be nice to know if this lens could do as well or better at 2x.
The 85MV is a great lens, one of my favorites for sure. I think its going to be hard for this no-name lens to beat it.

Robert

ray_parkhurst
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Post by ray_parkhurst »

I usually use a few layers of masking tape to make removing it easier, but the steel tape would for sure keep the screws from doing any damage!

The 85MV max aperture is f4.5, which makes it surprising it can perform about equally to the 95PN at its optimum of f3.3. Can you estimate the focal length and aperture of this new lens?

RobertOToole
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Post by RobertOToole »

ray_parkhurst wrote:I usually use a few layers of masking tape to make removing it easier, but the steel tape would for sure keep the screws from doing any damage!

The 85MV max aperture is f4.5, which makes it surprising it can perform about equally to the 95PN at its optimum of f3.3. Can you estimate the focal length and aperture of this new lens?
Yes, the lens is a 95mm f/3.4.

Working distance is nice.

I used FL = Added Extension / ( New Magnification - Old Magnification ), for the aperture I used Rik's method, shoot the front and rear pupils + a ruler without touching the focus.

The aperture seems to be correct as the Canon MP-E used the same flash setting at f/3.2 - f/3.5 for the test.

About as good as I could hope for on a no-name lens.

Robert

ray_parkhurst
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Post by ray_parkhurst »

So that is extremely promising. It could easily win vs the 85MV and 95PN.

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