This is the first Noritsu lens I’ve owned with magnification, not focal length printed on the side. This lens was sold as a mini-lab printing machine lens, but after testing the lens I have a feeling this is not correct.
Noritsu Zoom NC3x-15.6x H018070
Noritsu Zoom NC3x-15.6x H018070
Buying an unknown lens is always a gamble but the name Noritsu on the lens barrel and the fact that it price was just $3.93 (+shipping) made it worth the risk, or so I thought. Impulse purchases of unknown optics are always a gamble but staying within a strict price limit has worked for me but still I’ve been burned (stuck with a useless or poor lens) more times than I can remember.
Noritsu Zoom NC3x-15.6x H018070 with EL lens for scale
This is the bare lens without plates, motors and PCB board and its still a big one, 100+mm in diameter and 140+mm long. The SK enlarging lens on the right is for scale.
Three Blade Iris
At first glance the iris shape looks as if the unit is damaged but a close look reveals a 3 blade iris with 3 iris mounting pins (no missing blades). This is the first time I’ve seen a 3 blade iris. Not a very attractive design!
Mounting The Lens
NORITSU ZOOM NC3X-15.6X H018070
Noritsu Zoom NC3x-15.6x H018070 lens in reverse
Mounting the lens for infinity focus was a little difficult. I had to use M74 clamp, M72 tubes, M72 to SM2 and SM2 to E-mount adapters. Mounting this lens in reverse was very easy, a V74 v-mount clamp adapter slipped over the front barrel. The rear threads of the lens is a non-standard 56mm.
Image Quality
The lens is labeled 3x - 15.6x and as with most Noritsu lenses, the film is placed behind the lens when in use. So 3x - 15.6x is actually a reduction of 0.3x - 0.0156x when mounting the lens normally for infinity focus. For magnification the lens should be used in reverse for best results.
Noritsu Zoom NC3x-15.6x H018070 lens at 4.76x resized to 1500 pixels
When I tested the lens reversed at 5x (4.76x), at infinity and at 0.4x the lens gave me similar results. This test images I made were at a middle zoom setting, at maximum and minimum there were issues either with the image circle being too small or the rear lens group would protrude too far rewards and I did not want to risk a damaging the sensor testing $3.93 lens.
The in the middle zoom settings the lens image circle will cover full frame but the corners are soft, maybe the lens would work better on an APS-C or MFT sensor camera.
Edge crop at 4.76x 100 percent view Noritsu Zoom NC3x-15.6x H018070 lens in reverse
Final Verdict
Not recommended for macro photography.
From 5x to infinity and mounted normally or in reverse, lateral chromatic aberrations are a problem. The lens is not completely unusable for photomacrography but for a similar price more there are much better lenses out there. The image quality and lack of CA correction leads me to believe that this is a projection lens, not a mini-lab printing machine lens.
The Noritsu Zoom NC3x-15.6x H018070 lens was not the worst I’ve ever used but I will stay away from this type of lens in the future. Sorry to say that the image quality was so poor I turned down 3 other similar type Noritsu lenses (different magnifications) that I had previously paid for just to avoid the cost of shipping since the seller did not offer refunds I asked them to give them away or just toss them in the bin (garbage bin).