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 Post subject: Re: Wild Heerbrugg Makrozoom lens standalone (??) advice nee
PostPosted: Tue Jul 17, 2018 3:38 pm 
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Tim wrote:
Just tried it with a makrozoom objective and an old canon crop frame - there's a focal point @ ~4 inches away from the lens.


Bravo! =D> :D


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 Post subject: Re: Wild Heerbrugg Makrozoom lens standalone (??) advice nee
PostPosted: Tue Jul 17, 2018 4:39 pm 
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That makes sense. I did some testing this afternoon before reading the latest posts and came to the same conclusion--it's finite focused, though finding the right distance where things stay parfocal during zooming is tricky.
I appreciate the link to the bellows--I have a variety of adapters from screwing around with different microscopes and such but no bellows yet.
I finally managed to get the c-mount assembly apart.
Image
Aside from the single lens at the bottom it is just an empty tube. No way to get at it from the c-mount end, but there are those classic notches for unscrewing it (whatever those are called).
Image
I, of course, as an optical expert have the exact tool to remove this part.
By which I mean I ground 1/8" off the edge of a wood chisel.
Image
Image
I am not 100% sure what this does. Maybe it mimics the 1.25x magnification of an m400 series head? Maybe it gets things parfocal? I can resolve an image through the tube with or without it but didn't have a stable enough setup to test that. Most of it is dust which wiped off easily but of course the rest is permanent damage from mold.
So we know this isn't infinity corrected. However, since I have an AO one ten teaching model with two heads I figured I'd give this monstrosity a try even though the head is for infinity optics:
Image
And stuck on my nikon smz base just to make the kludge that much kludgier:
Image
And... it works! At least sort of!
Image
The images aren't half bad, though I noticed some things like odd distortion when looking at things on inclined planes. The real annoyance here is that (as I should have guessed) the image is reversed as in a compound microscope.
I know lots of people work with that every day, get used to it and do amazing work under those conditions. But thanks to my regular use of a stereoscope I have become accustomed to a certain standard of living. I have a feeling there's not going to be an easy way around that if I use a normal compound microscope head. I guess what's needed is something more specialized if I want the full m420 experience (aside from using my actual m420 when the focus pinion is fixed, anyway). It seems that the Leica solution for their z6/z16 series really is to just hook it up to a stereo head, if this is any indication: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Leica-Mikrosko ... 3640354084 I have a feeling that this might significantly degrade the image, since the head is collecting from either side of the lens rather than the center?

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 Post subject: Re: Wild Heerbrugg Makrozoom lens standalone (??) advice nee
PostPosted: Tue Jul 17, 2018 5:16 pm 
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Stephen Challener wrote:
I am not 100% sure what this does. Maybe it mimics the 1.25x magnification of an m400 series head? Maybe it gets things parfocal?

Stephen Challener wrote:
The images aren't half bad, though I noticed some things like odd distortion when looking at things on inclined planes.

Most likely the purpose of the moldy lens is to correct aberrations.

You can to see if the lens also does some magnification by using it to look at a lined index card. Visually compare the line spacing on a section of card extending beyond the lens to the line spacing on the card image seen through the lens.


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 Post subject: Re: Wild Heerbrugg Makrozoom lens standalone (??) advice nee
PostPosted: Fri Jul 20, 2018 5:34 am 
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It gets a single image using a beam splitter prism after the objective. I know someone who bought one of these and returned it because it wasn't as good as his M400 even though it was "modern" . The unit in the ebay auction is one to "run in the other direction" from.

M4*0 have a beam splitter too but a more efficient system with less glass for the image to go through.


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 Post subject: Re: Wild Heerbrugg Makrozoom lens standalone (??) advice nee
PostPosted: Sun Jul 22, 2018 12:15 am 
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Brian: from what I could see, that particular distortion only seemed to show up when I'd attached it to the infinity-corrected AO head, not with the tube alone (with or without the lens). Then again I could see a lot better through the microscope head than with the camera's screen.

To me it looks like putting that head on is basically turning the macroscope into a bastardized CMO stereomicroscope by putting two side-by-side lenses on it (putting the edges of those lenses above the center of the z6's FoV, making sure every part of the light goes through lens edges at some point) and then taking some of the light from one of those and splitting it to the photo port. I'm not an expert on optics, but it's pretty obvious they should have made a custom head for it.
I wonder how good the z6/z16 objectives themselves are, and how they would compare to the apozoom.

I ordered a trinocular finite Nikon head to try it on. I have a pair of Nikon stereo eyepieces so there shouldn't be an issues with objective corrections being applied to the light. I know the image will be inverted, but if it works well my next goal will be to either figure out some method to flip the image (unlikely given how little my searches have turned up, though this old paper is slightly intriguing [PDF warning] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... 1991.x/pdf) or find a finite microscope head that produces an erect image (they exist for metallurgy and such but it seems like this feature is more common in recent infinite scopes, and the ones I have found so far are very expensive).

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 Post subject: Re: Wild Heerbrugg Makrozoom lens standalone (??) advice nee
PostPosted: Sun Jul 22, 2018 3:53 pm 
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The Z6 is probably similar to the ApoZoom. In my opinion 16 to one is too much Zoom. I have a Zeiss stereo with eleven to one zoom and I think that may be too much. I have never gotten my hands on an M10 Apo from Wild which was their last and greatest stereo from Switzerland. The Z series has an advantage of separating the objective and zoom element so you can use it to higher mag. (with a large selection of objectives including Mitutoyo MPlan Apos) But they also put a beam splitter after the zoom section, before the binoc and one side of the binoc gets 50% of the light when you swing the photoprism. They also had a part silvered version where you didn't have to swing the prism. In that one the camera gets very little light. All this because they didn't want build expensive M4xx series anymore. Too good too expensive to build and not profitable enough unless they sold it for $40,000

These are way less appealing than the M400 or even M420 In the 400 the camera can get 100 % of the light. Or 50% if you choose. In the 100% position no additional distortion from prisms. No wasted light either.

I helped a guy who just could not stand that his mint M400 was built in the 80s or 90s and bought a Z6 or 16 against my strong and explicit recommendation. He ended up making the Leica dealer take it back for a refund. I am glad I was not there for that one.

He finally bought an Olympus MVX series which in my not particularly humble opinion is the only thing to compare to an M400. He took pictures which he thinks prove higher resolution. Because he is not really a macrophotographer I am skeptical of his results. To my knowledge the laws of optics have not been revised since the 90s The MVX IS a great scope system. He paid like $18,000 for it. I have not heard from him since so I presume he is happy.

In this day and age what I would recommend if you can get that one lens cleaned up is just use a permanent high res video and photographic camera and through the image onto a big screen. I think you have a C mount from that el Paso rig. Get your self and Olympus OMD M1 and adapt it. You can watch on UHD iirc then when you see something you like get an 80 megapixel image of it(in raw moder. For less that $2,000.
https://www.getolympus.com/us/en/omd I think these are the best deal going today for high res photography. Others may have copied them since I got mine about three years ago I have not been keeping up with cameras.
Interestingly the MVX can be rigged up for fluorescence photography. But you have to order it that way and it raises the price quite a bit. Perfect for diamonds. They also have a microscope camera that does the same trick as the OMD series namely moving the sensor to raise the resolution. That originated in microscope cameras.


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 Post subject: Re: Wild Heerbrugg Makrozoom lens standalone (??) advice nee
PostPosted: Tue Jul 24, 2018 1:32 am 
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That camera looks tantalizing, but 2k is a bit out of my budget at the moment. I have been using a pretty simple Canon rebel t6 for now--only 20ish mp but not bad for the price (especially wince I got it while eBay was running that 20% sale before Father's day).
When you say too much zoom, do you mean it has such a wide range it probably can't deliver on the other optical aspects? That would make sense, 16:1 seems a bit crazy. Still, if a z6 or z16 objective fell in my lap at a good price it would be fun tot ry them on a real macroscope head.
I did come across a reasonably priced trinocular finite microscope head that produces an upright image, and indeed already has a unitron zoom lens attached. I guess it is Kyowa's (appare tly quite obscure) take on the m420 concept. It should be fun to try it and then see id I can get the makrozoom attached and parfocal.
Until then, here's a fun oddball I ran across: https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre ... 3286736650
Why have one makrozoom when you can use two? They look odd and the title's zoom ratio is off, but the service manual calls them 1:5 makrozooms.
I imagine forensic microscopes in general would be good for gemology, given the long working distances, except for the price tag and awkward configurations.

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 Post subject: Re: Wild Heerbrugg Makrozoom lens standalone (??) advice nee
PostPosted: Tue Jul 24, 2018 3:52 pm 
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Well the OMD M5 mkII is almost as talented and only about $1100. I bought one of those before the M1 mk ii came out.
I have been joking that the Olympus engineers said "there is a guy interested in macro photography in the midwest whom we haven't sold a camera to yet" It's like they said what do I want.

The Kyowa Unitron stuff is nice for routine use but it ain't no Wild.

The bullet stand is sold from someone here in St. Louis but I don't know who or where he is mining the stuff he sells.
There was someone earlier who was importing AmScope quality stuff and selling it out of St. Louis. Might be the same guy. Maybe same ebay handle.

"Item ships from the Phillipines" a tropical environment. That is why I was thinking he was the same guy. An Asian microscope merchant dabbling in surplus european scopes. Proud of them too. ($16,000 !!)


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 Post subject: Re: Wild Heerbrugg Makrozoom lens standalone (??) advice nee
PostPosted: Sat Sep 01, 2018 2:07 am 
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Just as an update on this, I hooked it up to my camera again, this time with a simple c mount to canon adapter, and compared it to my now functional m420. The mount is definitely not designed to mimic the head of an m420, and at the mount distance produces a significantly vignetted image on my canon rebel t6 with or without the lens, unlike my m420 which I am sing a direct projection setup on which fills the sensor well. I assume the mount is instead meant to facilitate using a standard industrial c mount inspection camera. Plus sode, the damage to the lens doesnt ruin the image which is nice. Adding a three inchish spacer filled the sensor but resulted in an awkward length and short working distance. Overall this may not be bad with a small sensor camera, but it does need a mount. Maybe I will try to make a horizontal setup for it.

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 Post subject: Re: Wild Heerbrugg Makrozoom lens standalone (??) advice nee
PostPosted: Sat Sep 01, 2018 2:58 pm 
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The kinds of C mount industrial cameras that whomever specified that setup, had a pretty wide range of sensor sizes.
For example it could be old enough that it had a pre ccd vidicon tube based sensor which were usually what was called one inch size. When ccds came out they started with small sizes and lower pixel counts and quickly grew to what we have today which is even greater variety. If you do the paper hover test on a brightly lit target you can get a guess at the size sensor they were using. The sensor rectangle needs to fit inside the image circle with its corners on the circle.

Did you say whether or not there was an optic in the c mount?


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 Post subject: Re: Wild Heerbrugg Makrozoom lens standalone (??) advice nee
PostPosted: Sat Sep 01, 2018 5:31 pm 
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There is a lens which has some mold damage but still works, threaded and easy to take in and out. The distance to the sensor is definitely different with the canon adapter put on, but I am going to assume not enough to significantly change the size of the image circle. Using the 22mm diameter of the canon sensor, the image circle seems to be about 17mm without, 18mm with the lens in.
Image
I will say, in spite of all that it does still take nice pictures--the bad edge performance above is likely more due to the curved cabochon edges than optical problems. When mounted better than 'awkwardly balanced on a nikon stereo microscope mount' it will likely be a real nice piece of equipment.

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 Post subject: Re: Wild Heerbrugg Makrozoom lens standalone (??) advice nee
PostPosted: Sun Sep 02, 2018 12:14 pm 
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If it is necessary to try and reduce mold damage you can try finely powdered chalk or Calcium Carbonate. Grind it even finer in a mortar and pestle and screen it through a nylon stocking. Massage the lens with a thin slurry.


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 Post subject: Re: Wild Heerbrugg Makrozoom lens standalone (??) advice nee
PostPosted: Thu Oct 11, 2018 10:09 am 
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Just as a quick followup, I did some more testing with the makrozoom and found that the lens is there to bring it close to parfocality. With just empty spacing the working distance varies by a matter of feet between min and maximum zoom. I tried another random lens I had lying around and it also helped bring it closer to parfocal. I imagine with some experimentation it wouldn't be hard to find a lens/mounting distance combination that would yield reasonable parfocality and a good image circle too. But I have too many projects at the moment so I decided to just put the makrozoom lens on eBay. If anyone wants the industrial mount I'll send it to you for the cost of shipping (probably ~20 bucks inside the US).

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 Post subject: Re: Wild Heerbrugg Makrozoom lens standalone (??) advice nee
PostPosted: Sat Oct 13, 2018 10:05 am 
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Tim wrote:
Hi Stephen, nice contraption you have there :) Hooking it up to a camera shouldn't be too difficult. Let's hope the mold (cause that is what it appears to be) isn't in the objective.

Please pull all components apart and check each one. If the dirt/mold is on a lens you can reach, apply ethanol royally and carefully rub with a cotton bud. If it is mold it is likely that the coating of that lens is ruined. See if you can replace that part or keep polishing that lens until the entire coating is gone. Gene taught me: rather no coating than damaged coating.

Share images of both sides of the components here and we'll help you hook up a camera to it. Do you have one yet?


Ethanol on its own may not be the best choice in treating a fungal surface contaminated lens, since it has very little effect on the fungus.Indeed it may actually stimulate further cell growth. Zeiss does however recommend diluting its own cleaner in ethanol.
The advice from Leitz is to use a 50/50 mix of hydrogen peroxide and ammonia in distilled water, and from my experience, is both the most efficacious and least harmful.
Avoid purchasing hydrogen peroxide in quantity, otherwise you will become a person of interest to the security services


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 Post subject: Re: Wild Heerbrugg Makrozoom lens standalone (??) advice nee
PostPosted: Sat Oct 13, 2018 1:21 pm 
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G4Lab wrote:
If it is necessary to try and reduce mold damage you can try finely powdered chalk or Calcium Carbonate. Grind it even finer in a mortar and pestle and screen it through a nylon stocking. Massage the lens with a thin slurry.

Try toothpaste, the abrasive is a lot finer that you can get with a pestle and mortar, just softer than optical glass and the anti-bacterial additives seriously discourage further fungus growth.


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