T3D Re: matching lenses

[Brian Reynolds <reynolds@xxxxxxxxx>]

Ray Hannisian wrote:
> I am about to buy new lenses for my stereo video system.  Of course,
> I will be buying them in pairs.  I have been led to believe that
> normally available commercial lenses may vary considerably in their
> characteristics, even their focal lengths.
> 
> Is there any way to insure somewhat "matched" lenses, or to adjust
> them to have more similar optical characteristics 'after the fact'?
> 

What sort of lens are you looking at?  A prime focal length manual
focus lens (being relatively simple) would stand a better chance of
matching than an autofocus zoom lens.

A while ago a bunch of us got together and made a group purchase of
Tominon lenses (made for the Polaroid MP-3 4x5 copy camera).  You used
to find them for really cheap in rec.photo.marketplace, but I think
the supplier has moved to ebay.  Before sending the lenses off to
their final owners the guy who arranged the group purchase tested all
the lenses so that he could send out the best matched pairs.  He
mounted each lens on his 4x5 enlarger and measured the projected
image.  From a sample of 12 lenses, all of the lenses matched well
within 1% (i.e., the worst possible case was mismatched by less than
0.75%) and each final pair was matched to better than 0.2%.

Going by this experience I wouldn't think you would have much trouble
buying two lenses from normal channels.

-- 
Brian Reynolds                  | "Dee Dee!  Don't touch that button!"
reynolds@xxxxxxxxx              | "Oooh!"
http://www.panix.com/~reynolds  |    -- Dexter and Dee Dee
NAR# 54438                      |       "Dexter's Laboratory"


------------------------------