Nikon microscope lens used as macro lens

[MEPER]

I got myself a couple of small macro rails and I put it to test today. I tested also a Nikon microscope lens as macro lens on top of another lens. There are really many combinations and the "microscope world" is complicated. I found out that my floor is not stable enough for these kind of magnifications. I probably need to move to the bathroom where floor is concrete. The DOF is almost non existing. At least focus rail seems to work. The next thing is to find something interesting to take photos of. But many items can look interesting at high magnification. Here I used a small smd resistor as target. I think a more stable setup can make image sharper and probably also other combination of lenses. The microscope lens used is a x10 CF Plan lens (and I think just a standard Nikon lens. Probably an older lens). It is an RMS thread lens and it seems Nikon has moved up to 25mm thread?
It was quite fun to try out. The small smd resistor is about 1.5mm wide. The setup nearly fills out the whole frame but I think better combinations can be obtained. Maybe I should try to stop down the main lens a bit. Here it is wide open. 

[David H. Hartman]

Meper,

What lens are you using as a relay lens if I may ask?

Dave

[Birna Rørslett]

Meper,

What lens are you using as a relay lens if I may ask?

Dave

It looks like the ancient AF 80mm f/2.8 which was one out of two special lenses made for the F3AF.

[MEPER]

Yes, it is a 80/2.8 AF. The wires to the chip has been cut on this lens so the contacts has "no connection". They seems not to be compatible with modern cameras. But this lens is so far the one which gave the best results. The combination does not fill out the image 100% on Z50. It is a big challenge to get a steady setup without any vibration and also a challenge to get the focus 100% where you want and also so you can show something interesting with just one frame where DOF is almost non existing. This is a bit of a pain and I need to improve my technique.....
I have no conclusion yet if using a microscope lens has advantage over using e.g. reversed enlarger lenses etc.....to achieve like 5:1 - 10:1 magnification.
Maybe the use of a finite focus microscope lens would be better.....
I have seen that also in the microscope world real APO-lenses exists which also has very high "price tag" :-)
Think the one I use would be called an Achromat where only blue and red color are corrected.
But which one that is good for use on a camera lens I don't know other that a lens with large WD is nice. 

[MEPER]

It is my impression that the Nikkor 80/2.8 has very high image quality as a "standalone" lens and they are sold quite cheap.
Now I just got an offer accepted at ebay on the AF 300/3.5 ED in same serie. Maybe this will be the perfect combination. I think with this lens as relay it will also fill out a FX frame.
But also as a stand alone lens used manually on a Z camera I think it can give good results. I will just get a F to Z adapter without contacts so I don't have to worry about any Z-body damage.
I got it at $335 incl. shipping for a mint version. Think this is about the market price for this lens. Not exactly cheap but I think for the image quality I will get some value for the money......but we will see.....

Another lens I would like to try is this one x20 microscope lens. Impressing image he has made with it.....I am not close to such an image with my current setup.....yet.....
https://www.closeuphotography.com/nikon-20x-measuring-microscope-objective
....if someone could point out a place I could get it for $100 I would grab it :-)    .....seems to be a very nice lens.....nice size also......size does matter it seems.....

[Birna Rørslett]

You probably think of the AF 200mm f/3.5 ED, the bigger brother to the AF 80.

They are both good lenses, but hampered by the imprecise manual focusing due to the play of the focusing collar. Neither lens is suited for fast action photography because of this issue.

Unfortunately, although both are "chipped" their CPUs are incompatible with all Nikons other than the F3AF. I swapped out the factory chip for my own to get full metering ability restored.

As to the "front" objective, microscope optics can be tricky to use as they frequently are dependent on the ocular to correct various aberrations, and often are designated for viewing rather than photography. The Mitutoyo objectives (made for metallurgy I believe) are infinity corrected, APO, and provide a quite long working distance given their magnification. You can get them from 1X to 50X, 5X and 10X probably being the most frequently seen. As infinity optics they need a lens of 200mm focal length to form the final image. You can use various approaches to this end, from standard 200mm lenses to Micro-Nikkors, or even highly corrected close-up attachments (Raynox etc.). I have the 5X, 10X, and 20X, Mitutoyos.

[MEPER]

Yes, the bigger brother. The focus ring on 80/2.8 has about 1mm of play but very "smooth" play. It focus from infinity to 1m by only turning the ring just a little more than 90 degree. The image attached is the 200/3.5 lens I just purchased on ebay.

I tried the microscope lens as "stand alone" so even that it is a infinite focus lens it can form an image at the sensor. I need to learn more about optical design to know why this happens.....but a normal lens set to infinity will also form an image at close-up range if you just move the lens far away from the sensor. Maybe this is "same-same"?

I took an image of the F-logo on the old lens shade. The lens can "do something" as standalone.......there is a 100% crop which shows that there could be "pixel sharpness" at some "hot spots" and it is just a question about learning how to use the lens?