1x Test: Stacked Lenses vs. Macro Lens

Robert OToole ·

Stacking Lenses for 1X Magnification

In the range of 2x to 5x magnification I’ve seen excellent results stacking lenses so what about stacking two lenses of the same focal length for 1x magnification? I tested a big pile of enlarging lenses to find out.

Lenses in the 50mm to 75mm range are cheap and plentiful but all had issues with vignetting when stacked. Enlarging lenses over 100mm in focal length tend to be slower and or more expensive than 80mm. The Schneider 80mm f4 Componon S lens was the shortest focal length I could find without any corner shading when setup in a stacked configuration. These are cheap and easy to find.

Modern 1x macro lenses typically offer pretty decent image quality so is it possible to out-perform a typical 1x macro lens by stacking two low-cost enlarger lenses for a faster effective aperture?

Can two 4/80 lenses deliver better sharpness and image quality than a good quality 1x consumer macro lens for less cost?

Follow this link to see the full test: https://www.closeuphotography.com/1x-low-cost-lens-test

Schneider APO-Xenoplan Lens has Arrived

Robert OToole ·

This machine vision lens is designed for an ultra fine pixel pitch of 2.5 μm x 2.5 μm and is made to resolve very small objects, down to a minimum defect size of 1.67 μm. My first time testing the lens I was a little surprised, I was unable to output sharpen the images, they were already too sharp out of ACR. That doesn’t happen often. I will be posting test results soon.