Thursday, May 14, 2020

Surprising STEINHEIL f2.8/50mm lens for reflected UV photography VII - Focus Shift

This again is about this older 50mm lens, which was made decades ago by famous lens maker STEINHEIL which attracted me, since it showed some seemingly good UV transmission, which have already shown here. I have already shown that it performs quite well using the Baader-U filter, and using some even deeper reaching UV filters, using a 340nm shortpass and the IDAS 330nm filter (I have the 2" version, no longer made).

Now I wanted to show today how the focus shift of this, or any other lens can be easily made visible. All images shot at f8, using a modified Xenon flash.

[click on image gets you a larger image]

VIS image using UV/IR Cut filter:
 

UV image using Bader-U filter (approx. 320-390nm, peak 360nm):
 

UV image using IDAS UV filter (approx. 300-380nm, peak 330nm):
 

UV image using 340nm UV filter (approx. 320-340nm):
 

Now it is about to show how those images differ in size, using a method I call "differential", i.e. a subtraction of two images, one visible and one UV, where any focus shift will show as overlapping on the borders of the object. If you looks close you will see this around the object.

VIS-UV (Baader-U filter) differential image:
 

VIS-UV (IDAS UV filter) differential image:
 

VIS-UV (340nm UV filter) differential image:
 

It got quite obvious before, that this lens is also performing very well at even shorter wavelengths, making it a very useful lens for reflected UV down to 330-340nm at an optimal f8/f11 setting, especially since the image size deviation between visible and UV image is also only 1.3% , which can be easily seen (and measured) from those differential images.

I have written about that lens more HERE.

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

More info on this very interesting field may be found on my site http://www.pbase.com/kds315/uv_photos