I'm using an AO Spencer 1076, 10x Achro, NA 0.25, 9.1mm WD, which cost $13.50 plus shipping. I bought a $13 thread adapter to put it on the front of the $35 135mm f2.5 lens I already had for regular photography, and that's it. Now that's value! I haven't had a chance to do a whole lot with it, but it doesn't seem to work badly either. I've discovered that I need to clean my sensor before I can really do anything more than verify the magnification - it was about 5/32 inch on a 36mm sensor, so around 9x.
A few thoughts/comments about the Raynox tube lens: 1) I have found that it is slightly better when reversed. This makes sense: it is designed to be a close-up lens with a power of about 5 dioptres. So in its normal mode of use it expects to have light rays coming from about 20 0 mm in front of its front surface and outputs rays focused at infinity from its rear surface (so that the lens it is attached to can focus them). When used as a tube lens, the incoming rays reaching the front surface are "from" infinity, and the Raynox focuses them onto the sensor about 200mm behind the rear surface - so it makes sense to reverse the lens. 2) An easy way to get the Raynox lens at the right distance from the sensor is to point the camera at a distant object and focus the image (particularly easy if you are using bellows). 3) I would be surprised if chromatic aberration is a problem. If you have the microscope objective close to the Raynox then you are using only a small, central, part of the Raynox - whereas chromatic aberration generally only becomes serious when you are using the outer parts of the lens. The Thorlabs tube lens may well be better than the Raynox, but that is probably due to qualities other than chromatic operation. BTW - Alan's video says that CFI stands for Chromium-Free Infinity. Not quite. It is an acronym for Chromatic aberration-Free Infinity. But I can understand the error because this is sometimes abbreviated to Chrome-Free Infinity.
Dear Mr. Allan Walls, I really liked your video about Zerene and Helicon... I downloaded the trial version of zerene and Helicon and because of the interface, I'm almost ready to buy helicon. Its content helped me to save some dollars, because the price of Helicon is much more expensive and being in dollars converted into Brazilian currency, it costs 4 times more rrs
Yes, I have, and some of them were really very good. I think this might actually be a good, fun project to get into. I will have to dig up all my notes but there were a couple of lenses that were cheap and performed brilliantly. Thanks for the cool idea!
Hi Allan, in an earlier video on the virtues of the Mitutoyo M Plan Apo 10X (if I'm not mistaken) you used this lens with the Raynox 150 as a tube lens and said it produced excellent results? So, in your opinion, how does this combination compare with the Nikon - Raynox pair and, while the Thorlabs Apo ITL200 is clearly a much superior tube lens compared to the Raynox, where would you consider the Mitutoyo - Raynox pair fitted compared to the Nikon - Raynox and Mitutoyo - ITL200 pairs? I'm presently considering purchasing either the Nikon 10X - Raynox pair or the Mitutoyo 10X - Raynox pair as the ITL200 combination is just too expensive for me at the moment and the much greater working distance for the Mitutoyo combination is certainly functionally more attractive to my gemmological interests. Additionally, while I have a great deal of experience photographing inclusions in transparent gem materials using a stereo trinocular zoom microscope, I have absolutely no experience using microscope objectives - tube lens combinations but am greatly attracted to the clarity and flatfield results that can be obtained by this method! I am presently thinking that these microscope objectives - tube lens combinations can be used to actually photograph internal gemstone inclusions based on theoretical grounds BUT CAN THEY actually be used this way??? Is it just a matter of getting the correct and sufficient lighting?? Obviously, it is not the sort of thing I can try out before purchasing to base my decision on, so I would truly respect your [no - binding] opinion(s), please. Apologies for the shear length of my questions but I know that in discussing this topic with retired fellow-scientists, there are a great many of us pondering the same questions and would accordingly, welcome your views. Sincerely, Ian
If I could reasonably afford the Mitutoyo combination, I certainly would snap it up. Stepping up into the 10x magnification arena presents plenty of challenges to learn to overcome, so it’s seems reasonable to invest wisely and learn for yourself if 10x is something that will hold your interest long term. Until that occurs, Nikon/Raynox is a great learning combination. At 1/5 the cost, it still amazes my camera club members, and that makes me happy.
I could not agree more. It is not trivial to get good images out of either setup and I think the Mitutoyo would have been wasted on me, and certainly the ITL200 would have been. But with time and practice the Mitutoyo starts to pull into the lead and one thing is certain, the Mitutoyo will ruin you for any other objective (though I hear the Qioptic is something special).
great video as usual! many info, i would like to know what would be your setting with Mitutoyo 20x APO Plan mount with reversed raynox 150 of 250 in terms of distance between raynow and Mitutoyo and distance from raynox to sensor. Althought i'm really pleased with IQ with Mitu 5x and 10x, Mitu 20x is really hard to set properly for me...
Loving your info! Just joined your Patreon . I’m definitely a beginner . For some weird reason, I absolutely love seeing bees and bugs up really close! guess because I am a detail person. Anyway, Alan, how do I get to Discord? Sorry if that’s a dumb question, lol. Now if I could just find an insect! It is sooo dry here in the Texas panhandle. Thank you!
Allan, I just got surprised with what you did. for a while I was searching for such optical combination for microscopy and your videos are the best I found explaing how objective lens work. Allan, I have a" Nikon LWD 20X/0.4 P ∞/0.17 WD 3.8" objective lens and a C-mount camera. I need to buy an appropriate tube lens for that with a budget around 1000-2000 Euros. I know it is a lot to ask but I would be very grateful if you tell me what I need to buy. Thanks in advance
Hi Ahmad, sorry for the late response - you have me stumped - I am not familiar with a Nikon infinity corrected objective that is long working distance and has an aperture of 0.4. Can you tell me a little bit more - just for my interest. Regardless, it will need a 200mm tube lens like all Nikon infinity conjugate optics. I would recommend the Thorlabs ITL200 as one of my own favorite tube lenses at 200mm - it is actually made by Nikon for Thorlabs and it can usually be picked up used for about $240US. Are you wishing to use this objective for photography or are you building a microscope? Feel free t email me at contact@allanwallsphotography.com and we can discuss further. I would love to be more helpful but I don't know which lens you have.
Great video again. I'm missing that beetle set up....was looking for that part. Thats very sad.. :( What about the 10x Mitu with the Raynox DCR-150? Is that an option also for good results?
Amazing Images, could somehow with such a setup been made combined panorama stacks to generate high-res combined images of the whole object? Would be cool.
Most certainly, but there are many technical challenges to overcome, most notably the problem of merging images with changing outlines.It can be done but it takes a lot of number crunching and a way to coordinate camera movement (or subject, or both) - this is something I am working on!
@@AllanWallsPhotography I have one coupled with a dcr150. I have a second hand one like the one you have. i'v bought from ebay but has slight delamination. I posted a video of the lens on my channel. It is difficult for me to compare quality without any reference, but i think I will save some money for the newer version one 378-803-3
Be curious no longer... I have been granted an extension on my loan of both the 10x Mitutoyo and the ITL200 and the next round of tests are underway. I will compare the Raynox DCR150 to the ITL200 with the 10x and also the 5x and 20x if time permits. Finally, I will run a series of APS-C to FF comparisons with both tube lenses. Then I will have a nap.
@@AllanWallsPhotography I look forward to it. Btw I finally got a mounting set up made to mount the dcr on my mtf machine. I got the normal facing flange distance measured, still need to do the reverse mount and figure out how to get the mtf vs field
@@andrewh2341 Still feel like 210mm image distance at inifinity? It is hard to be completely objective, but focus peaking helps a little. I would be most interested in hearing your thoughts on the ITL200 and the huge difference in ideal image distance and focal length when reversed (245mm vs. 200mm) - is this a function of asymmetry due to apochromatic design? I was not expecting the jump.
Indeed - the poor wee things are terribly under-appreciated. Like every other insect except dancing mantises, which I think may be a tad over-appreciated (and have rather ordinary feet).
For heavens sake man, you are British, so speak ENGLISH. You are picking up the awful American habit of pronouncing Ts in a word as Ds example.... Bedder for better shudder for shutter. Otherwise it's a great channel.
Every fibre in my substantial body tells me not to take the bait, but here I go anyway... Thank you for the compliment, I am pleased you find the content helpful. I am, I must admit, a little self-conscious about my strange Sussex/Alabama accent, and would concede that with diligent practice and constant vigilance I might have been able to maintain the dulcet perfection of my boyhood South Downs intonation. But, alas, over the last four and a half decades I have repeatedly yielded to my baser instincts, selfishly pursuing the earthly pleasures of raising three children, supporting a family, and maintaining a professional career, while showing utter disdain for my duty to crown and country by failing to attend to the cultivation of my most precious asset, my British accent. I stand guilty, as accused. Now would you like me to repeat that in American? They have a two word phrase that should cover it. Thanks for watching - the best is yet to come. Cheers!
I'm using an AO Spencer 1076, 10x Achro, NA 0.25, 9.1mm WD, which cost $13.50 plus shipping. I bought a $13 thread adapter to put it on the front of the $35 135mm f2.5 lens I already had for regular photography, and that's it. Now that's value! I haven't had a chance to do a whole lot with it, but it doesn't seem to work badly either. I've discovered that I need to clean my sensor before I can really do anything more than verify the magnification - it was about 5/32 inch on a 36mm sensor, so around 9x.
A few thoughts/comments about the Raynox tube lens:
1) I have found that it is slightly better when reversed. This makes sense: it is designed to be a close-up lens with a power of about 5 dioptres. So in its normal mode of use it expects to have light rays coming from about 20 0 mm in front of its front surface and outputs rays focused at infinity from its rear surface (so that the lens it is attached to can focus them). When used as a tube lens, the incoming rays reaching the front surface are "from" infinity, and the Raynox focuses them onto the sensor about 200mm behind the rear surface - so it makes sense to reverse the lens.
2) An easy way to get the Raynox lens at the right distance from the sensor is to point the camera at a distant object and focus the image (particularly easy if you are using bellows).
3) I would be surprised if chromatic aberration is a problem. If you have the microscope objective close to the Raynox then you are using only a small, central, part of the Raynox - whereas chromatic aberration generally only becomes serious when you are using the outer parts of the lens. The Thorlabs tube lens may well be better than the Raynox, but that is probably due to qualities other than chromatic operation.
BTW - Alan's video says that CFI stands for Chromium-Free Infinity. Not quite. It is an acronym for Chromatic aberration-Free Infinity. But I can understand the error because this is sometimes abbreviated to Chrome-Free Infinity.
Dear Mr. Allan Walls, I really liked your video about Zerene and Helicon... I downloaded the trial version of zerene and Helicon and because of the interface, I'm almost ready to buy helicon. Its content helped me to save some dollars, because the price of Helicon is much more expensive and being in dollars converted into Brazilian currency, it costs 4 times more rrs
Have you tried any medium format lenses as tube lenses? They are quite reasonably priced on ebay. Very heavy though. Love your channel.
Yes, I have, and some of them were really very good. I think this might actually be a good, fun project to get into. I will have to dig up all my notes but there were a couple of lenses that were cheap and performed brilliantly. Thanks for the cool idea!
Hi Allan, in an earlier video on the virtues of the Mitutoyo M Plan Apo 10X (if I'm not mistaken) you used this lens with the Raynox 150 as a tube lens and said it produced excellent results? So, in your opinion, how does this combination compare with the Nikon - Raynox pair and, while the Thorlabs Apo ITL200 is clearly a much superior tube lens compared to the Raynox, where would you consider the Mitutoyo - Raynox pair fitted compared to the Nikon - Raynox and Mitutoyo - ITL200 pairs? I'm presently considering purchasing either the Nikon 10X - Raynox pair or the Mitutoyo 10X - Raynox pair as the ITL200 combination is just too expensive for me at the moment and the much greater working distance for the Mitutoyo combination is certainly functionally more attractive to my gemmological interests. Additionally, while I have a great deal of experience photographing inclusions in transparent gem materials using a stereo trinocular zoom microscope, I have absolutely no experience using microscope objectives - tube lens combinations but am greatly attracted to the clarity and flatfield results that can be obtained by this method! I am presently thinking that these microscope objectives - tube lens combinations can be used to actually photograph internal gemstone inclusions based on theoretical grounds BUT CAN THEY actually be used this way??? Is it just a matter of getting the correct and sufficient lighting?? Obviously, it is not the sort of thing I can try out before purchasing to base my decision on, so I would truly respect your [no - binding] opinion(s), please. Apologies for the shear length of my questions but I know that in discussing this topic with retired fellow-scientists, there are a great many of us pondering the same questions and would accordingly, welcome your views. Sincerely, Ian
What if I would use the Mitutoyo with the Raynox as tube lens? Would it still be better than Nikon CFI with Raynox?
yes
If I could reasonably afford the Mitutoyo combination, I certainly would snap it up. Stepping up into the 10x magnification arena presents plenty of challenges to learn to overcome, so it’s seems reasonable to invest wisely and learn for yourself if 10x is something that will hold your interest long term. Until that occurs, Nikon/Raynox is a great learning combination. At 1/5 the cost, it still amazes my camera club members, and that makes me happy.
I could not agree more. It is not trivial to get good images out of either setup and I think the Mitutoyo would have been wasted on me, and certainly the ITL200 would have been. But with time and practice the Mitutoyo starts to pull into the lead and one thing is certain, the Mitutoyo will ruin you for any other objective (though I hear the Qioptic is something special).
What else would I need to mount a raynox 150 with the nikon 10x on my canon camera?
What do you think about the canon macro 20 mm? I had this from years ago for slow-mo shooting
great video as usual! many info, i would like to know what would be your setting with Mitutoyo 20x APO Plan mount with reversed raynox 150 of 250 in terms of distance between raynow and Mitutoyo and distance from raynox to sensor. Althought i'm really pleased with IQ with Mitu 5x and 10x, Mitu 20x is really hard to set properly for me...
Loving your info! Just joined your Patreon . I’m definitely a beginner . For some weird reason, I absolutely love seeing bees and bugs up really close! guess because I am a detail person. Anyway, Alan, how do I get to Discord? Sorry if that’s a dumb question, lol. Now if I could just find an insect! It is sooo dry here in the Texas panhandle. Thank you!
Allan, I just got surprised with what you did. for a while I was searching for such optical combination for microscopy and your videos are the best I found explaing how objective lens work.
Allan, I have a" Nikon LWD 20X/0.4 P ∞/0.17 WD 3.8" objective lens and a C-mount camera. I need to buy an appropriate tube lens for that with a budget around 1000-2000 Euros.
I know it is a lot to ask but I would be very grateful if you tell me what I need to buy.
Thanks in advance
Hi Ahmad, sorry for the late response - you have me stumped - I am not familiar with a Nikon infinity corrected objective that is long working distance and has an aperture of 0.4. Can you tell me a little bit more - just for my interest. Regardless, it will need a 200mm tube lens like all Nikon infinity conjugate optics. I would recommend the Thorlabs ITL200 as one of my own favorite tube lenses at 200mm - it is actually made by Nikon for Thorlabs and it can usually be picked up used for about $240US. Are you wishing to use this objective for photography or are you building a microscope? Feel free t email me at contact@allanwallsphotography.com and we can discuss further. I would love to be more helpful but I don't know which lens you have.
@@AllanWallsPhotography Thank you very much Allan. I wrote to you via email.
Great video again. I'm missing that beetle set up....was looking for that part. Thats very sad.. :( What about the 10x Mitu with the Raynox DCR-150? Is that an option also for good results?
I am sending a link to my non-Patreon supporters/donors in just a few minutes - that links to the full video.
@@AllanWallsPhotography Thats the way we know you!! Helpful and professional :) Top Allan!!
Amazing Images, could somehow with such a setup been made combined panorama stacks to generate high-res combined images of the whole object? Would be cool.
Most certainly, but there are many technical challenges to overcome, most notably the problem of merging images with changing outlines.It can be done but it takes a lot of number crunching and a way to coordinate camera movement (or subject, or both) - this is something I am working on!
Maybe a tilt shift adaper like fotodiox tlt rokr can work, to make 2 full series from left and right position.
Best intro ever😂
What do you think if using the mitutoyo raynox dcr150 combination?
I have a video coming out comparing the Raynox DCR 150 to the ITL200 with the Mitutoyo 5x - I don't want to spoil it but the results are close!
@@AllanWallsPhotography I have one coupled with a dcr150. I have a second hand one like the one you have. i'v bought from ebay but has slight delamination. I posted a video of the lens on my channel. It is difficult for me to compare quality without any reference, but i think I will save some money for the newer version one 378-803-3
I’m curious what difference if any we would see with the mitutoyo with the raynox
Be curious no longer... I have been granted an extension on my loan of both the 10x Mitutoyo and the ITL200 and the next round of tests are underway. I will compare the Raynox DCR150 to the ITL200 with the 10x and also the 5x and 20x if time permits. Finally, I will run a series of APS-C to FF comparisons with both tube lenses. Then I will have a nap.
@@AllanWallsPhotography I look forward to it. Btw I finally got a mounting set up made to mount the dcr on my mtf machine. I got the normal facing flange distance measured, still need to do the reverse mount and figure out how to get the mtf vs field
@@andrewh2341 Still feel like 210mm image distance at inifinity? It is hard to be completely objective, but focus peaking helps a little. I would be most interested in hearing your thoughts on the ITL200 and the huge difference in ideal image distance and focal length when reversed (245mm vs. 200mm) - is this a function of asymmetry due to apochromatic design? I was not expecting the jump.
Where can i buy this mitutoyo objective?
It depends what country you reside in, but Edmunds Optics has an international presence and are reputable.
@@AllanWallsPhotography thanks for the info.
Weevils in general are wonderful, not just their feet, but their feet are, obviously, incomparable.
Indeed - the poor wee things are terribly under-appreciated. Like every other insect except dancing mantises, which I think may be a tad over-appreciated (and have rather ordinary feet).
nice
For heavens sake man, you are British, so speak ENGLISH. You are picking up the awful American habit of pronouncing Ts in a word as Ds example.... Bedder for better shudder for shutter. Otherwise it's a great channel.
Every fibre in my substantial body tells me not to take the bait, but here I go anyway... Thank you for the compliment, I am pleased you find the content helpful. I am, I must admit, a little self-conscious about my strange Sussex/Alabama accent, and would concede that with diligent practice and constant vigilance I might have been able to maintain the dulcet perfection of my boyhood South Downs intonation. But, alas, over the last four and a half decades I have repeatedly yielded to my baser instincts, selfishly pursuing the earthly pleasures of raising three children, supporting a family, and maintaining a professional career, while showing utter disdain for my duty to crown and country by failing to attend to the cultivation of my most precious asset, my British accent. I stand guilty, as accused. Now would you like me to repeat that in American? They have a two word phrase that should cover it. Thanks for watching - the best is yet to come. Cheers!
@Philip Butler Probably and probably not!
There are ~160 recorded dialects of English. 37 of them are from the UK. Do you know which one you speak?
@@luisa9628 #38, I think.