2066 Viewer lens quality

[baker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Paul E Baker +1 +1 708 979 3132)]

>I assume that Paul Baker has one of those viewers (not just the box!). 
>Would you care to comment on the optical quality of the lenses, Paul?

I am disappointed in the quality -- I consider the Red-button's achromats
to be the best of the vintage originals and was expecting even better
performance from _double_ achromats (ignorantly, I guess, because I don't
study optics and assumed "two must be better than one").  But I notice a
lot of what I call "swimming" distortion as I move my eyes around to take
in the entire image (I wear glasses so my eyes are never really close to
_any_ viewer's lenses to begin with :-).

Another surprise is the amount of "tunnel vision" in the lenses because
their diameter is the same as Red-button achromats but the length of the
mount is about doubled.  This viewer would never make it as a 7-perf viewer
because it doesn't have enough field of view.  To me, it's a bit like
looking into a microscope -- which isn't too bad when viewing a macro
subject but I don't find it appealing for scenics.  But I guess this is
not unreasonable given the viewer was produced to accompany the Realist
Macro camera.

Paul Baker


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