ZUFAR 4/350mm quartz fluorite catadioptric lens II

Today more about that Quartz Fluorite catadioptric ZUFAR-2CA f4/350mm anastigmat lens which took me over 10 years to find. It had been developed for the Soviet MARS 2 to 5 missions to planet Mars, was made of synthetic Quartz and Calcium Fluorite (CaF2) crystals to be able to work in UV and also visible light, thus allowing to take images 300-700nm without focus shift.

 

So today a few first test shots using this very special lens, due to lack of the mount which need to be designed and made, just some freelensing shots. "Freelensing" means holding the lens in front of the camera without any mount in between the two (!).

Here some visible light shots, showing how this lens performs. This first one is about 150 meters away:

and the following one about 15 meters:

The lack of chromatic aberration gets easily visible on that golden ball as well as on these shiny stainless steel exhaust pipes.

Now on to reflected UV images (300-400nm), here right out of camera:

and here with whitebalancing applied:

Being able to handheld a f4 350mm lens and shooting in reflected UV (300-400nm) is rather astonishing, a proof how much UV this lens is able to transmit. More about this lens will certainly follow here...

I have written about this lens before HERE


Stay tuned, more will follow on that fascinating subject...