150mm EL Tube Lens Test Results

[RobertOToole]

The Lomo 3.7x has pretty good coverage, with or without tube lens

My copy is poor on FF on edges and worse on corners. Hafe not tested with TL, since I have to find a 100mm TL first (on 100mm 2.8 Canon hard vignetting)

120mm TL worked well on the Lomo 3,7 on APS-C at least.

The MS120 TL really improved overall IQ with the Lomo, the corners really improved quite a bit.

https://www.closeuphotography.com/lomo-3-7x-and-sr120

[RobertOToole]

Next test up is the 135 Tube Lens Test with 8 EL lenses ...

Robert,
thankyou again for your work and showing the 150 mm Tubelenses.

Thanks for the interest of course!

As I have a 135 mm Nikon EL and a Tominon 135 mm only, I am very curious about the 135 mm results, as this shorter FL could bring even stronger results (?)

Yes, the IQ of the 135s is a bit better than the 150s. Also the 180s seem to be a bit worse than the 150s.

The results I've looked at so far are great.

I had a tough time with the Tominon 135. I only have one copy and it was a poor peformer. Thats typical with Tominon though. It took me at least 4 tries with the 4.5/35 to find a really sharp one, at least the low cost of the Tominons makes it less painful.

Thanks for taking time to comment Christian.

Best,

Robert

[RobertOToole]

About 80 mm -- Did you think about the Olympus 80mm / f4 Macro?
I think, as far as I remember, Ray showed, it has some power...

The older Olympus bellows lenses in my experience, have serious LaCA issues, but this could be a good one maybe? The prices aren't bad with that one at least.

The last OM bellows lens I tried, the 38mm f/2.8 Auto bellows lens, performed so bad at 3x with excessive pink fringing, I decided to just leave it out of the results. It wasn't worth the time to bother with so I sold it.

The other issue is with prices on some of the OM bellows lenses, the WA lenses are double or triple the price of a Canon bellows lens, at least last time I checked.

Best,

Robert

[typestar]

...The older Olympus bellows lenses in my experience, have serious LaCA issues, but this could be a good one maybe? The prices aren't bad with that one at least.

Robert, at least Ray listed this (4 years ago) Olympus OM Zuiko 80 mm Bellows lens better in the results as the M-Componon, in the fifth place together we the Repromaster and the (normal) Componons..

http://www.macrocoins.com/80mm-lens-shootout.html

Perhaps you will like to give it a try... / Just my thoughts

But I know -- another work again...
you should sleep enough and have a leisure time... after all the testings...

Christian

[Lou Jost]

I can hardly wait for the 135mm results!! One of my favorite tube lengths. I really like the very old, very cheap Nikkor-Q 135mm as a tube lens.

I would like to look into good 80mm lenses for stacking a bit more.

I think the Scitex 89mm is a good tube lens.

[chris_ma]

Give me some suggestions for a good 50mm that would make a good lens to stack. I can't seem to find anything. I am thinking maybe the M-Componon 4/50?
BTW, I've already tried fast 50s and they are the worst for stacking.

hmm, here's another attempt of generalisation:

maybe the front lens works better with short focal lengths?
they are usually thinner which could help, or because the iris is physically smaller at the same F-stop (which would explain why fast ones are worst), or something else to do with optics

so maybe a 50 with a short lens group and small aperture. the russian Industar 50mm/3.5 comes to mind. cheap too.
hmm, had one of those once, but where could it be.
chris

[chris_ma]

About 80 mm -- Did you think about the Olympus 80mm / f4 Macro?

I had that a long time ago, was not terribly impressed and sold it.
could be that I had a bad copy or I just didn't use it to it's best since at that time I had even less experience with macro then now
chris

[RobertOToole]

...The older Olympus bellows lenses in my experience, have serious LaCA issues, but this could be a good one maybe? The prices aren't bad with that one at least.

Robert, at least Ray listed this (4 years ago) Olympus OM Zuiko 80 mm Bellows lens better in the results as the M-Componon, in the fifth place together we the Repromaster and the (normal) Componons..

http://www.macrocoins.com/80mm-lens-shootout.html

Perhaps you will like to give it a try... / Just my thoughts

But I know -- another work again...
you should sleep enough and have a leisure time... after all the testings...

Christian

Hi Christian,

Running tests, and shooting in general, really helps me relax and de-stress so don't worry.

A couple things come to mind if I remember correctly Ray did not test for CAs. Also the M-CNP was out of range, its designed for 1x and higher.

But you never know, you might be right, I would be happy to test one if someone can send me a copy

[RobertOToole]

About 80 mm -- Did you think about the Olympus 80mm / f4 Macro?

I had that a long time ago, was not terribly impressed and sold it.
could be that I had a bad copy or I just didn't use it to it's best since at that time I had even less experience with macro then now
chris

Sample to sample variation is always going to be a factor.

Picked up a SK APO-Digitar Colortec 80 and the copy performed like a nightmare, CAs, and fuzzy at 100% view at any magnification. Others have had good results.

Thankfully my copy was less than $100.

BTW some APO-Digitars are just re-housed Componons, this is according to SKs info, the 4/60 is just an APO-Componon with an APO-Digitar badge

Best,

Robert

[Lou Jost]

I'm very excited about these results, Robert. I've been fiddling with the aperture settings of the Componon to see if I can get good corners in FF, and I have found that by closing down the tube lens to halfway between f/8 and f/11, and closing down the front lens (using its own aperture) to f/4, I get acceptable corners. Astigmatism is strong n the corners when the tube lens is wide open. This can be reduced by using Zerene DMap instead of PMax, but it doesn't go away until the rear lens is stopped down to the level I just mentioned. The exposure hardly changes when the rear lens is stopped down this way. It starts changing when I go beyond about f/9.5.

Now I'll try the right way to stop the combo down, using a paper aperture between them, as Robert used.

[lothman]

28/80 sounds good also but 80 rear lenses are hard to find, the Componon-S 80mm seems to be okay. I would like to look into good 80mm lenses for stacking a bit more.
Robert

just comming in my mind, there are lot of slide projector lenses in ths range. Have you ever tried lets say a Leitz Colorplan 2.5/90 as tube lens?

Might be I have one over

[RobertOToole]

28/80 sounds good also but 80 rear lenses are hard to find, the Componon-S 80mm seems to be okay. I would like to look into good 80mm lenses for stacking a bit more.
Robert

just comming in my mind, there are lot of slide projector lenses in ths range. Have you ever tried lets say a Leitz Colorplan 2.5/90 as tube lens?

Might be I have one over

Hi Lothar, I think DickB on this forum has tried projection lenses as TLs if I'm not mistaken.

Im interested so if you find the time to give your lens a try make sure you post the results

[RobertOToole]

I'm very excited about these results, Robert. I've been fiddling with the aperture settings of the Componon to see if I can get good corners in FF, and I have found that by closing down the tube lens to halfway between f/8 and f/11, and closing down the front lens (using its own aperture) to f/4, I get acceptable corners. Astigmatism is strong n the corners when the tube lens is wide open. This can be reduced by using Zerene DMap instead of PMax, but it doesn't go away until the rear lens is stopped down to the level I just mentioned. The exposure hardly changes when the rear lens is stopped down this way. It starts changing when I go beyond about f/9.5.

Now I'll try the right way to stop the combo down, using a paper aperture between them, as Robert used.

That is interesting Lou, thanks for sharing the details.

I've also seen some improvements to stopping down the rear lens with the limited amount of experiences that I've tried it so far without any negative effects on the image, at least so far. I need to remember to try that more often.

In testing I've seen that some lenses respond to additional distance between the main and front lens (like a microscope objective).

In the past I've always tried to get the front and rear lenses as close as possible, almost touching, but I've found thats not always best. Some lenses do better in the corners with 25mm or 50mm between the two.

More variables

[Lou Jost]

"In testing I've seen that some lenses respond to additional distance between the main and front lens (like a microscope objective). "

I've seen that too sometimes, and it seems like some kinds of aberrations improve while others get worse as distance increases. It becomes hard to say which distance is "better".

[dickb]

28/80 sounds good also but 80 rear lenses are hard to find, the Componon-S 80mm seems to be okay. I would like to look into good 80mm lenses for stacking a bit more.
Robert

just comming in my mind, there are lot of slide projector lenses in ths range. Have you ever tried lets say a Leitz Colorplan 2.5/90 as tube lens?

Might be I have one over

Hi Lothar, I think DickB on this forum has tried projection lenses as TLs if I'm not mistaken.

Im interested so if you find the time to give your lens a try make sure you post the results

I haven't tested my projection lenses as tube lenses yet, it is one of the (many) things on my to do list. I have some Schneider Cine Xenon lenses and Isco Ultra HD ones, projection lenses intended for cinema projection. I also have slide projection lenses like the Colorplan you mentioned. There are several variations of those as well, I would avoid the ones marked CF for curved field, designed for use with slides mounted without glass. My guess is the cine projection lenses will perform better as they are built to a higher quality standard and with faster apertures, but perhaps the slide projection ones will work as well. Mounting both types of lenses securely and perfectly aligned is going to be a bit of a challenge, though.