Qioptiq Linos d.fine HR 2.4 128 3.33x Line Scan Lens with d.fine HR area scan module installed
The d.fine HR 2.4/128 3.33x (dfHR) features a new diffraction-limited optical design for 120 MP and 150 MP, 12K and 16K line scan sensors used in optical inspection and machine vision applications in semiconductor, flat panel display (FPD) and electronics manufacturing industries. This new design outperforms the the older inspec.x L 4.0/105 3.5x lens with a larger maximum aperture. The inspec.x L is capable of 50Lp / mm with 38% contrast from 420nm - 680nm (at the sensor). The new design reaches the same value at 72Lp / mm wide open at f/2.4 from 400nm - 750nm ( image side MTF is 35% @ 72 Lp/mm ).
Soon after this lens was released in 2019 I contacted Qioptiq and I was told that it was designed to only be used with a beamsplitter prism for coaxial lighting. In March 2020 Qioptiq released the LINOS d.fine HR Area Scan Module as an option to replace the prism module, making it possible to used the lens lateral directional illumination. The area scan module contains a Schott N-BK7 crown glass element to compensate for removal of the glass in the prism. This is an advantage since you can use the dfHR with coaxial or lateral lighting without any drop off in image quality. Other manufacturers sell separate beamsplitter models and non-beamsplitter models.
Qioptiq LINOS d.fine HR 2.4 128 3.33x Line Scan Lens and d.fine HR area scan module on the left
The d.fine HR 2.4/128 3.33x you see here was provided by Qioptiq HQ in Germany for a one month test period. All the other equipment on this site, including the Rayfact 3.5x used in this test, was purchased using my own personal funds, without any sponsors, advertising, site membership fees, or featured product fees. I do not receive any income from affiliate links or selling you any products. All the information I post on this site is to share with friends, colleagues, and fellow macro photographers. Almost all photography sites today are run for a profit by using affiliate links to generate commission and through allowing advertising on the site.
Key Features of the d.fine HR
Fast f/2.4 maximum aperture
Apochromatic design
New diffraction-limited optical design
82mm image circle means coverage for phase1 and Fuji medium format sensors
Thread mounts + V-mount front and rear
Flat image field with no corner shading
All metal barrel with locking aperture ring
Qioptiq LINOS d.fine HR 2.4 128 3.33x Line Scan Lens with d.fine HR area scan module
PROS AND CONS
What I really like:
High-end image quality
Zero traces of LoCAs or LaCAs
V-mount and threaded mounts on each end
Locking aperture control ring
The lens mounting direction is clearly marked on the barrel, this is an example to other manufacturers on how it should be done!
What I can do without:
Lack of v-mount / threads on the area scan module means no way to mount the lens backwards for use at 1/3x!
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
Qioptiq LINOS d.fine HR 2.4/128 3.33x lens
Qioptiq Order Number: 0703-134-000-20
Type: Large format 12K - 16K line scan lens
Focal length: 127.7mm
Maximum aperture: f/2.4
NA (Numerical Aperture): 0.21
Sharpest Aperture: f/2.4
Aperture range: f/2.4 - f/8
Coverage: Ø 82mm image circle
Distortion: < 0.1% (design value)
Sensor pixel size: 3.5 - 5 μm
Manufacturers recommended magnification range: ß 3.33x ( ß 3.2…3.5x )
Working distance: with d.fine HR area scan module 91 mm ( 89.2 ... 92.5 mm )
Wavelength range: 400nm - 750nm
Lens mount: Ø 66 V-mount, V66
Accessory mount: Ø 62 V-mount, V62
Filter thread: M55 P= 0.50mm
Mounting thread: M58 P= 0.75mm
Source: lens made in Germany
Design includes cover glass: yes, 0.5mm N-ZK7
Manufacturers quoted price: $7031.00 USD. d.fine HR area scan module $485.68 USD
d.fine part numbers:
d.fine HR 2.4/128 lens 0703-134-000-20
d.fine HR area scan module 0703-130-825-00
d.fine HR focus tube 2408-012-000-52
L to R; Rodagon 5.6/80, inspec.x L 5.6/105 and d.fine HR 2.4/128
3.4x Test: Linos d.fine HR vs Nikon Rayfact 3.5x
Qioptiq LINOS d.fine HR vs Nikon Rayfact 3.5x
3.4x TEST SET-UP
3.4x is within the recommended magnification range for both lenses. The lenses are made for fine pattern inspection of FPDs ( Flat Panel Display ), and PCBs ( Printed Circuit Boards ) with large format 12K and 16K, 3.5 - 5μm, line sensor cameras.
The dfHR lens is a much newer design with a larger image circle, Ø 82 vs Ø 64mm. The Rayfact 3.5x when available new (now out of production) was about 43% more expensive than the dfHR, $10,000 USD compared to only $7,000 USD (new). On the used market the Rayfact 3.5x is much less now, expect to pay about $1500+ USD. The biggest difference between the two is in chromatic correction, the dfHR is an apochromatic design where the Rayfact is not as well corrected.
Qioptiq LINOS d.fine HR Set-up
image arrow towards sensor
maximum f/2.4 effective f/8.16
Nikon Rayfact 3.5x Set-up
small diameter end towards the subject
maximum f/2.4 effective f/8.16
Camera: Sony α7R IV, Sony Alpha ILCE-A7R IV (A7R4)
Sensor size: Full Frame. 35.7mm x 23.8mm. 42.91 mm diagonal. 3.76 micron sensor pitch
Flash: Godox TT350s wireless flash x 2 with one Godox X1s 2.4G wireless flash transmitter
Vertical stand: Nikon MM-11 with a Nikon focus block
The sharpest frame was then selected out of a stack of images made in 4 micron steps. Separate images were selected for center, edge, and corner if needed. Each image was processed in PS CC with identical settings with all noise reduction and lens correction turned off, all settings were zeroed out (true zero) and the same settings were used for all of the images. All of the images shown here are single files.
d.fine HR vs Rayfact 3.5x: 100% VIEW Full Frame CENTER CROPS
The dfHR and Rayfact are extremely close as you would expect considering both have similar maximum apertures. If I had to pick one I would say the Rayfact might have the slightest advantage. Both are excellent without any chromatic aberrations.
d.fine HR vs Rayfact 3.5x: 100% APSC Corner CROPS
The APSC corner crops approximately at the edge of a 28mm image circle, tell a different story. The dfHR is just about flawless, almost no fall off in image quality compared to the center. The Rayfact is still very sharp, as sharp as the dfHR, but the difference is how the lenses handle CAs. Around the edges of the 27 40 numbers the Rayfact shows purple CAs.
d.fine HR vs Rayfact 3.5x: 100% Full Frame Corner Crops
The 1 GATE / POLY micro-lettering is awesome on both sides. Unfortunately the 53 66 numbers show even more purple fringing than APSC corner crops with the Rayfact. The dfHR full frame corner crop is perfectly clean, an amazing performance from the Qioptiq lens!
d.fine HR vs Rayfact 3.5x: Chromatic Aberration test
The optical glass used in lens elements disperses or separates light in varying degrees (this effect is best illustrated with a prism). This is bad for image quality because it causes chromatic aberrations or CAs, where the different wavelengths or colors end up being focused at different points. This causes unsightly fringing that will reduce sharpness and resolution. The chromatic aberrations, or CAs, produced by a lens occur because the lens was not able to bring all the different wavelengths or colors of light, to focus on the same point. With a low dispersion lens element with a lower the dispersion ratio, the less the light is scattered which makes it easier for the designers to correct CAs.
LaCAs
Lateral CAs ( LaCAs ) or just CAs, are aberrations visible as red and blue fringing at hard edges, especially towards the corners of an image. CAs are pretty common with fast lenses and wide-angles at larger apertures.
The above crops are show here at 200% view in Photoshop. The dfHR is clean without any trace of CAs, the Rayfact shows a trace amount of purple CAs, much less than you would typically see with consumer macro lenses labeled APO so it’s not really an issue.
LoCAs
Longitudinal CAs, or LoCAs, are visible as halos of different colors in out-of-focus areas, usually magenta in front of the focus point and green beyond. LoCAs are extremely difficult to correct, especially wide-open, and only a handful of lenses are LoCA free. Almost all fast lenses and almost all macro lenses show LoCAs at larger apertures.
Click on the image below to open it in a new window at 2500 pixels or better two-finger or right button click and save-as and view in an image viewing app.
The image above is show here at 200%. The dfHR is free of LoCAs. The Rayfact image mild loCAs, less than what you would see from a typical 4x achromat objective. The Rayfact LoCAs are upside down, usually lenses exhibit purple in front and green behind the focus plane. The LoCA target was held at a perfect 45 degree angle using a Thorlabs AP180 Adjustable Angle Plate.
To make LoCAs easy to see, check the image below shown at 150% view in PS. The dfHR crop is flipped so the bokeh matches between the two lenses.
Final CA verdict: the dfHR is an apochromatic design that shows no trace of chromatic aberrations in any of the test crops above. The only other lenses that I have ever tested with this level of chromatic correction are the Printing-NIKKOR 1x and 2x!
Test note: all of these images were processed in PS CC with identical settings with all noise reduction and lens correction disabled, all settings were zeroed out (true zero) and the same settings were used for all of the images.
FINAL verdict d.fine HR vs Rayfact 3.5x TEST
The d.fine HR 2.4/128 3.33x gets my highest recommendation. The performance was sensational, the image quality was on a level that I’ve rarely seen, similar to the level of correction of a Printing-NIKKOR!
The Rayfact 3.5x sharpness was fantastic but the chromatic aberrations were not on the same level of the dfHR. The fact that the Rayfact was designed to work with a beamsplitter prism adapter, but it was tested here directional lateral lighting without a prism, could explain at least some of the CAs. Qioptiq uses a 25mm thick plate of optical glass to compensate for the lack of a prism for a reason.
Quick Look: Mitutoyo 5x M Plan APO vs Schneider stack at 3.4x
Take a quick look at how the Mitutoyo M Plan 5x pushed down on the Sony A7R4 compared at 3.4x compares to a pair of stacked lenses, the Schneider Makro-Symmar HM and the 2.8/35 Componon. Test setup was the same as the dfHR and Rayfact test lenses with the A7R4. Image processing was also identical.
Mitutoyo M Plan Pushed Down Set-up
Mitutoyo M Plan 5x 0.14 at 3.4x: tested f/2.75 effective f/9.35 (Mitutoyo M Plan 5x 0.14: f/2.97 effective f/17.86 at 5x)
Tube lens: Schneider Componon-S 5.6/135 lens normally mounted wide-open. No extension between lenses.
Schneider Stack Set-up
Schneider Stack: tested f/2.8 effective f/9.52
Front lens: Schneider Kreuznach 2.8/35 Componon lens reverse mounted at f/2.8. No extension between lenses.
Rear lens: Schneider Kreuznach Makro-Symmar HM 5.6/120 lens normally mounted wide-open.
The Schneider Componon stacked on a 120 Makro-Symmar is just about unbeatable thanks to the wider aperture advantage of the stacked configuration (see: https://www.closeuphotography.com/three-point-four-x-lens-test and this: https://www.closeuphotography.com/35mm-lens-test ). So it should easily win over any normal lens on extension at 3.4x but the pushed down Mitutoyo was something else and better than I expected. The sharpness is amazing and totally free CAs. The Componon 2.8/35 should prove to have a larger image circle than the Mitutoyo when pushed down this far. Typically the IC coverage increases as you increase the magnification and drops when pushed down, as is the case with the Mitutoyo.
Mitutoyo M Plan vs Schneider lens Test
The sharpness from the pushed down Mitutoyo is better than I expected. Unfortunately the trade-off for the increased sharpness at the pushed down magnification is a smaller image circle. There is no way the pushed down Mitutoyo will cover a full frame sensor unfortunately, or even an APSC sensor for that matter.
28mm from the center and it looks like this area is just outside the sharp center zone of the Mitutoyo. The left side of the frame is decent but the right side is not sharp. Both of the lenses show a curved image plane so different images were used for APSC and full frame corners. CAs from the Componon do improve stopped down to f/3.2 or f/3.5 but sharpness would also drop slightly so I left the aperture wide-open.
The far corner is not acceptable from the Mitutoyo. The Componon manages to hang on to acceptable sharpness on the left side of the frame but the softness creeps in the middle somewhere and the right side is soft. The 6 element, 4 group Componon is sharp into the extreme corners of the A7R4’s sensor? That’s quite an accomplishment!
FINAL verdict Mitutoyo vs Schneider test
This section of the test was really just an experiment with the A7R4 body so I didn’t expect either to compete with the dfHR lens and they don’t but the center sharpness out of the Mitutoyo surprised me and the consistent coverage from the Makro-Symmar + Componon 2.8/35 was really good to see. How does the pushed down Mitutoyo compare to the dfHR and the Rayfact?
Rating the image quality of these four, all are very good but the dfHR and Rayfact as excellent in the center with the Mitutoyo a very close runner up.
SENSOR COVER GLASS
The Qioptiq de.fine HR (and inspec.x) are designed to work with the cover glass of a digital sensor, the specs for the glass plate thickness are included in the data sheet. Technically this should give a newer lens an advantage over older legacy designs. I said technically since it doesn’t seem to matter to some lenses like the Printing-NIKKORs, but some lenses are affected by a variety of factors . See this LensRentals blog post for more on the subject: https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2014/06/sensor-stack-thickness-when-does-it-matter/
The d.fine HR Focus Tube
Qioptiq included the LINOS d.fine Focus Tube with the demo dfHR lens. This is the largest extension tube I’ve ever seen, 95mm in diameter and over 500mm long (almost 20 in). Connections are M72 x 0.75 threads at the back end and V66 at the front. Since I was shooting the Rayfact 3.5x lens at the same time I used my normal SM2 system for this test. The range of the lens on this tube is 3.2 - 3.5x! I would seriously consider one if I owned a dfHR.
The dfHR lens mounted on the Sony A7R4 in reverse
Testing the dfHR lens at lower magnifications like 1/3x and at infinity (for use as tube lens) was on my to-do list. But the lack of a mount on the front of the area scan module made it impossible to properly mount the lens in the amount of time I had. I did manage to do a quick check with the lens in reverse at infinity (as above without the area scan module) and the results were sharp from center to the corners but the corners were soft at infinity with the lens mounted normally (image arrow towards the sensor).
LINKS FOR MORE INFORMATION on the d.fine HR lens
d.fine HR 2.4/128 datasheet PDF:
https://www.qioptiq-shop.com/out/Graphics/en/00129621_0.pdf
d.fine HR 2.4/128 3.33x Leaflet PDF from Qioptiq:
https://www.qioptiq-shop.com/out/Graphics/en/00129698_0.pdf
The d.fine HR 2.4/128 Lens on the Qioptiq Shop site:
https://www.qioptiq-shop.com/en/Precision-Optics/LINOS-Machine-Vision-Solutions/LINOS-Machine-Vision-Lenses/d-fine-HR-2-4-128.html
Inspec.x line-up PDF from Qioptiq:
https://www.qioptiq-shop.com/out/Graphics/en/00119135_0.pdf
d.fine HR 2.4/128 Lens info on the Excelitas site:
LENSES That Compare?
There are not a lot of lenses that can compare to the d.fine HR 2.4/128. The Rayfact 3.5x has been discontinued and was replaced by the Rayfact 116mm f/2.5 3.5s L-OFM35156MN Link lens.
The closest current competitor looks like the Xenon-Diamond 2.2/117. Some of these like the Zeiss S-Planar 2.9/115 and EO 2.9/117 seem to sold only with a beamsplitter prism installed.
Schneider Xenon-Diamond 3.5x 2.2/117 Ø 62.5 mm IC $8453 USD : datasheet / website link
Schneider Xenon-Sapphire 0.29x (reverse for 3.5x) 3.7/96 Ø 82 mm IC $4267 USD : datasheet / website link
Edmund Optics 2.5x 2.9/117mm Ø 82 mm IC $3995 USD : datasheet / website link
Zeiss S-Planar 2.5x 2.5/115mm Ø 82 mm IC : datasheet
Chiopt LH1635A 3.5x 1.6/100 Ø 82 mm IC $8000 USD: datasheet
Myutron LSP350 3.5x 2.5/113 Ø 67 mm IC datasheet
Unfortunately there are no inspection or microscope HR objectives that would offer a large enough image circle to compare to any of the lenses above. The closest would be the Qioptiq mag.x LD Plan 5x APO. This lens will cover full frame at standard magnification but pushing down to 3.5x would reduce the image circle diameter, as would the Mitutoyo 5X 0.21 Plan Apo HR. The Edmunds 5X/0.225 EO M Plan HR and the Optem HR 5x, will not cover an APS-C sensor at standard magnification.
Who is Qioptiq?
Qioptiq designs and manufactures photonic products, custom optical solutions, machine vision lenses, optical bench products, micro optics, zoom lenses, microscopes, medical imaging, and photographic Lenses. They have been extremely helpful providing information and loaner products to support this site.
Qioptiq was established in 2005. Qioptiq® acquired LINOS® Photonics GmbH & Co. and will now operate under the name of Qioptiq Photonics GmbH & Co. in 2009. In 2010 Rodenstock Precision Optics, owned by LINOS AG, was subsumed by Qioptiq making Rodenstock Precision Optics a brand of Qioptiq. In October 2013, the Qioptiq Group was taken over by the US company Excelitas Technologies Corp. Excelitas Technologies Corp. has 7,000 total employees across all of its locations and generates $1.41 billion in sales (USD).
Other HR Optics From Qioptiq
Qioptiq makes some other high performance high resolution optics:
Mag.x LD Plan 5x apochromat:
https://www.closeuphotography.com/qioptiq-magx-5x-objective
Mag.x LD Plan Apo 8x /0.32 objective lens:
https://www.closeuphotography.com/qioptiq-magx-8x-objective
Mag.x line-up on the Qioptiq site:
https://www.qioptiq-shop.com/en/Precision-Optics/Micro-Imaging/mag-x-system-125/