Any telephoto fast near UV capable lens?

[Avalon]

Hello. I was wondering if there are wide aperture telephoto lenses that can transmit UV-A or at least 365nm? I got interested in Sigma 70-200mm 1:2.8 II macro HSM, Sigma Af zoom 75 ~ 200 3.8 and a bit slower but all-in-one Sony FE 24-240mm OSS lens as well vintage prime lens such as Hanimex 200mm F3.5. I want to ideally have a multipurpose lens that can perform well in the visible and IR spectrum. Are any of these good? What could indicated better UV transmission in lens without doing testing?

[colinbm]

UV Nikkor 105mm f4.2, no focus shift from UVC to near IR.

[Avalon]

Rare and price is huge. Can any of these mentioned and similar lenses transmit partially UV? What lens components usually block mostly UV? I was even thinking of buying cheap vintage lens and recementing with UV-pass cement I have, would that be effective?

[colinbm]

I think there are some 108mm lenses in the lens sticky ?

[Avalon]

Any other than Sony normal zoom lens that performs well in UV as well IR or they are all bad? Can't afford exotic UV dedicated lens There are autofocus adapters such as Canon EF to Sony E mount which I could use.

[colinbm]

You would be most impressed with the UV Nikkor, & Your photography deserves it, & you wont loose any money when you sell it 

[Avalon]

It's 7000 dollar lens + taxes + shipping. https://www.ebay.com/itm/285610136145?hash=item427fb0d251:g:Yr4AAOSwfVxlfUqs&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA0DWwSLdFr81U%2FAymyeGciQsPWnLKXEGoz%2F%2BnCiEZ9UXjVx%2B4g%2F9P49dwThfVrg9VZBil%2FNnMMaJ3yHYAXE%2FxrXXdLE3b9GTQSoz9r1IpPs80xcEbUNZcz7IgByZK8aRScI5d6ihU5dQ9SE%2F9eiGUK0sq095rJYmhYRlb%2BC1EEZu%2BR7B5uUl0L%2FohXZ7gNHfUHVsyScMBiit8HLN8Cbmwc77y0pj1onlUDV%2FIA3Gllk8FJ6dq1hoePiPhcRPml%2Flql2ZDWPYNO8RFL%2BHWY0w7eZo%3D|tkp%3ABk9SR-iftZKfYw

[ulf]

28 minutes ago, colinbm said:

You would be most impressed with the UV Nikkor, & Your photography deserves it, & you wont loose any money when you sell it 

I agree with you 100%, but it is not always possible for everyone to find funding for buying such a lens.

Avalon said that he could not afford buying an UV-Nikkor.

If UV photography is essential enough it might be a good idea to start saving to eventually buy one. 

 

Very few if any modern non UV-lenses perform anything but marginal. The zoom lenses are very likely worse.

Modern lenses used many lens elements with advanced AR-coating and lens elements made of modern glass materials that do not transmit much UV.

Also there are risks for hotspots in IR, more so for modern lenses.

[Avalon]

So basically AR coating would have to be removed for near UV spectrum photography? What about vintage lenses with different multi coatings or just single layer AR coatings? But older lenses might be using optical cement such as canada balsam which yellows strongly.  

[Andy Perrin]

I don’t quite understand what you are really looking for. If you don’t need zoom, there would seem to be plenty of old telephoto lenses that meet your needs. For example the Meyer - Optik Görlitz Telemegor 1:5.5 / 180, which I own, does nicely in UV-A through IR. 

[colinbm]

@Avalon If you want a longer lens the old Mirror lenses are useful in UVA.

[photoni]

3 hours ago, Avalon said:

Rare and price is huge

UV Nikkor 105 f4.5 on the buyee.jp website, it is still on sale at 498,000 yen (€3,326.64)
Shipping + customs fees will be approximately €4500

[Akira]

I've seen Birna's post using Nikkor-Q Auto 200mm/f4.0 in UV.  It is not regarded as a "fast" lens per se, but the UV transmission matters much more in this spectrum region than in the visible region.

 

http://www.naturfotograf.com/lens_short.html

[ulf]

If you want a really long tele for UV, then the lenses from Novoflex are quite good.

Optically the T-Noflexar 400/5.6 lens head is best.

https://www.ultravioletphotography.com/content/index.php?/topic/4519-novoflex-400mm-f56-t-noflexar/

 

 

[dabateman]

Nikkor 105mm f5.6 EL old lens in metal is good. 

The coatings aren't the only thing blocking UV. The actual glass used in the lens construction matters as well. Many newer lens designs use new interesting glass types that also block UV.

I quick test is to buy a 365nm flashlight, bring it to your camera shop and shine it through any lens you might be interested in at the camera shop. See if you can make white paper glow really strongly on the other side of the lens. 

[Andrea B.]

There are a *lot* of 135/3.5 lenses which transmit UV like their equivalent 35/3.5 versions. Look for the usual brands: Koyei, Kuribayashi, Pentax (old), Prinz Galaxy, Soligor, etc.

 

Look also in this post: https://www.ultravioletphotography.com/content/index.php?/topic/1654-sticky-uv-capable-lenses/&do=findComment&comment=44612

 

[Ming]

@Avalon Have you considered Canon EF 200mm f/2.8?  @bvf evaluated it in the forum.

 

See https://www.ultravioletphotography.com/content/index.php?/topic/4464-assessment-of-antique-vintage-lenses-in-uv-ir/ and https://www.ultravioletphotography.com/content/index.php?/topic/4408-putting-values-against-performance-of-various-lenses-resolving-power/.

 

 

[ulf]

18 hours ago, Avalon said:

Hello. I was wondering if there are wide aperture telephoto lenses that can transmit UV-A or at least 365nm? 

That is an essential question that needs to be more specific. How big is an acceptable drop at 365nm?

 

If you accept a considerable transmission drop at 365nm there are more lenses to chose from, but then the images will be completely dominated by light much closer to 400nm.

It will be just a play with numbers.

 

The UV-pass filters and stacks to start with give a rather narrow wavelength window of light. Combined with the camera sensor sensitivity it becomes even more narrow.

That leads to a rather limited palette of false colours and long exposure times.

 

The general trend is that aiming for a wide aperture fast lens is contra-productive, at least at 365nm.

The added amount of glass and number of lens elements and good AR-coating surfaces in such lenses will decreases transmission considerably more than the gain of the wider opening.

 

In some situations that can be acceptable, but then you will mostly use the small sliver of UV-light close to 400nm.

[photoni]

O.T. I did tests with large format, enlargement and reproduction lenses

they are good in UVA Apo Ronnar 240 and 300 f 9 - Apo Gerogon - Astron 150 f4.5

a Bertiot 400 f9 and some Petzval 300 from 1850/80

[Avalon]

13 hours ago, ulf said:

That is an essential question that needs to be more specific. How big is an acceptable drop at 365nm?

 

If you accept a considerable transmission drop at 365nm there are more lenses to chose from, but then the images will be completely dominated by light much closer to 400nm.

It will be just a play with numbers.

 

The UV-pass filters and stacks to start with give a rather narrow wavelength window of light. Combined with the camera sensor sensitivity it becomes even more narrow.

That leads to a rather limited palette of false colours and long exposure times.

 

The general trend is that aiming for a wide aperture fast lens is contra-productive, at least at 365nm.

The added amount of glass and number of lens elements and good AR-coating surfaces in such lenses will decreases transmission considerably more than the gain of the wider opening.

 

In some situations that can be acceptable, but then you will mostly use the small sliver of UV-light close to 400nm.

Good point, that's why I'm focusing near ultraviolet range only since I will be using ZWB1+QB21 I already own with normal sensor camera. 

 

Is it possible to modify lens to tranmitt UV or even build single aspherical element lens. This wouldn't give great image quality but it would be budget friendly.

 

I was looking around in vintage shop and came across old Tamron zoom lens which stated that lens were BBAR coated. Is it same as traditional multicoating or is broader spectrum coverage?

 

There was veritasium video on Youtube where he was able to film in UV using Voigtlander Nokton 25mm F0.95 lens which is fastest lens available on the market.

 

[Andy Perrin]

The Veritasium guy didn’t know what he was doing*. High speed matters less than transmission. You can force longer wave UV through most lenses with enough blocking, but you lose what little color there is. Or to put it in terms you already mentioned, the Veritasium video has very little 365nm in all likelihood. He would have been better off renting a UV Nikkor or the current version of that lens. 
 

Keep in mind that to see things like sunscreen or flower bullseyes, you barely need to dip into UV very far at all - even by 380nm most of that stuff will be visible. 

* Honestly sometimes I think that guy needs better advisors. Also, this is not the first time we have needed to debunk this particular video! It’s frustrating that he spread this bad information. 

[StephanN]

On 1/11/2024 at 5:25 PM, colinbm said:

@Avalon If you want a longer lens the old Mirror lenses are useful in UVA.

 

I love the 500 mirror lens, a lot of punch in a small package

 

 

[ulf]

42 minutes ago, StephanN said:

 

I love the 500 mirror lens, a lot of punch in a small package

 

 

If you are really lucky you might find a mirror lens that have survived and still are sharp, if it ever was sharp, from the beginning.

 

About usability for UV almost all designs with very few unique exceptions, include glass lenses in the optical path that will degrade the UV-transmission.

 

Mirror lenses have two advantages. They are compact and light.

• They have several disadvantages.
• Fixed aperture in the lens, not possible to stop down.
• Terrible out of focus ring shaped patterns.
• Mechanically sensitive. Often cheaply built and the image quality reflects that ;-)

 

In general a long FL lens ( fl > 350-400mm ) is difficult to get sharp images, far away, for several reasons.

1. They are very sensitive to vibrations as the angular magnification is big.
2. When focussing far away the sharpness is affected by thermal air density, the same way as above a hot road in the summer. For Tele lenses that is much more evident. This is the same phenomenon that causes problems for astro-imaging, called seeing. Look it up! Also UV images are normally quite hazy far away due to light scattering in UV.
3. UV normally need long exposure times that makes the effects above smear out the image.

I must confess that I have never used a mirror lens and what I say above is what I have read about only. 

 

However I have used really long tele lenses for photographing Jupiter, the moon and birds like the Bee Eater I shared images of here. That was at a 30m distance and only affected a little by air turbulence. The longest FL with a good 2x extender was 1120mm.

Just experimenting I also tried to focus 5km away on a building crane with a big sign on the side trying to read the text and seeing the wires. that was very difficult due to turbulence. All of that was in VIS.

 

For me the most likely user case for a long tele in UV would be distant close-up images, of things like flowers, that I could not get close enough to, in any other way.

 

[Stefano]

On 1/12/2024 at 2:31 PM, Avalon said:

Good point, that's why I'm focusing near ultraviolet range only since I will be using ZWB1+QB21 I already own with normal sensor camera. 

 

Is it possible to modify lens to tranmitt UV or even build single aspherical element lens. This wouldn't give great image quality but it would be budget friendly.

About coatings removal, you might read this topic, and this one. To sum it up, it's probably not worth it.

 

About aspherical singlet lenses, JMC tried one, and posted about it here. They are usually designed to focus collimated light rays (at infinity), parallel to the lens' axis, to a very small point, usually diffraction-limited. They are thus very sharp in the middle of the image, but they are not optimized for corner sharpness.

[Avalon]

  Thanks. So I might try building a singlet aspheric lens for really good UV transmission or even multiple focal lengths. Or another option is to look for "normal" lenses with better UV transmission. Third option if lucky would be to find a used/defective UV dedicated lens at a good price. What is the biggest listing of UV capable lenses out there you could recommend too look into?