In another post, I discussed the mathematical calculation of optical parameters for a configuration of stacked lenses and camera components. As is evident from the example worked out there, the procedure is somewhat tedious. Instead, it is better to spend twice the time writing a program to do it. Fortunately I already did this and offer it to you, gentle reader, to use and criticize. I expect no less than one rabid rant about some aspect that doesn’t pedantically conform to the IEEE standard. This is working code (and has been checked over and tested to some extent). I use it. However, it is not commercial grade and was not designed with either efficiency or robustness in mind. It is quick and dirty – but graciously so.
Think of this as a mine-shaft. You enter at your own risk and by grace of the owner. And if you fall, there won’t be non-stop human interest coverage on 20 TV channels as rescue workers try to extract you. That’s because you’re not a telegenic little kid and this is a metaphor. Rather, you will end up covered in numeric slime of dubious origin. But I still won’t care.
All this said, I do appreciate constructive criticism and suggestions. Please let me know about any bugs. I don’t plan to extensively maintain this program, but I will issue fixes for significant bugs.
The program I provide is a command line unix (including MacOS) utility. It should be quite portable, as no funky libraries are involved. The program can analyze a single user-specified configuration or scan over all possible configurations from an inventory file. In the latter case, it may restrict itself to configurations accessible using the included adapters or regardless of adapter. It also may apply a filter to limit the output to “interesting” cases such as very high magnification, very wide angle, or high telephoto.
The number of configurations can be quite large, particularly when many components are available, there are no constraints, and we account for the large number of focal/zoom choices for each given stack. For this reason, it is best to constrain scans to a few components in an inventory (by commenting out the components you don’t need). For example, if one has both 10 and 25mm extension tubes then try with only one. If this looks promising, restrict yourself to the components involved and uncomment the 25mm as well.
Either through the summary option or the use of a script to select out desirable configurations, the output may be analyzed and used for practical decisions. For example, if a 10x macro lens is needed and light isn’t an issue then a 1.4X telextender followed by a 200mm zoom followed by a reversed 28mm will do the trick. It will have a high f-stop, but if those components are already owned and we don’t need a low f-stop it may be far more cost-effective option than a dedicated ultra-macro lens (there aren’t any at 10X, but a 5X one is available).
For simple viewing of the results, I recommend the use of my “tless” utility. This isn’t a shameless plug. I wrote tless for myself, and I use it extensively.
A Place of Sand 