Nauticam newest MFO-1

[Davide DB]

I saw a FB post of @pcremoneabout this new wet lens and it's strange nobody talk about it...

 

Quote

Introducing our newest Water Contact Optic, the Mid-range focus optimizer or MFO-1. The MFO-1's main function is to cancel the focus distance limitation of macro lenses underwater and provide ample focus distance for different sizes of subjects which were previously limited by using SMC-1 or CMC lenses.  The MFO-1 also greatly improves optical performance by minimizing aberration

 

 

https://www.nauticam.com/products/mid-range-focus-optimizer-1-mfo-1

 

[Troporobo]

I don’t understand this at all.  I use a 60mm lens on m4/3 with a flat port and it will focus just fine at any distance from macro to infinity.  I don’t see any “aberrations” either.  What am I missing?  

[ChipBPhoto]

2 hours ago, Davide DB said:

I saw a FB post of @pcremoneabout this new wet lens and it's strange nobody talk about it...

 

 

 

https://www.nauticam.com/products/mid-range-focus-optimizer-1-mfo-1

 

 

Thanks for sharing @Davide DB !  

I've heard the name, but details have been unknown.  This could be interesting.

 

 

Edited October 20 by ChipBPhoto

[bvanant]

Changes the focus range of the macro lens, resulting faster acquisition of focus with much less hunting.

 

I wasn't award that my focus range was limited with any of the u4/3 macro lenses.

Bill

 

[Chris Ross]

10 hours ago, Troporobo said:

I don’t understand this at all.  I use a 60mm lens on m4/3 with a flat port and it will focus just fine at any distance from macro to infinity.  I don’t see any “aberrations” either.  What am I missing?  

It seems to be saying it gives you more working distance when using something like an SMC-1 on a 100mm macro lens.  Perhaps need to wait for it to appear in the port chart to see what sort of changes it will make.

[hedonist222]

The MFO-1's main function is to cancel the focus distance limitation.

 

Maybe early days and hence the cryptic marketing blurb, but it looks like they've managed to reduce (doubt they can eliminate) the minimum focusing distance. 

 

Info from the internet: 

#81501 MFO-1 (yellow circle)

The main features are:

1. The focusing distance can be within 1 meter, eliminating the focusing distance limit of macro lenses (SMC is within 10cm).

2. Improve the overall picture quality.

3. The distance, range and size of photographed objects have increased a lot of possibilities.

It is expected to ship at the end of November, priced at $12,000

#nauticam #smc3 #mfo1

 

 

[hedonist222]

Just now, hedonist222 said:

The MFO-1's main function is to cancel the focus distance limitation.

 

Maybe early days and hence the cryptic marketing blurb, but it looks like they've managed to reduce (doubt they can eliminate) the minimum focusing distance. 

 

Info from the internet: 

#81501 MFO-1 (yellow circle)

The main features are:

1. The focusing distance can be within 1 meter, eliminating the focusing distance limit of macro lenses (SMC is within 10cm).

2. Improve the overall picture quality.

3. The distance, range and size of photographed objects have increased a lot of possibilities.

It is expected to ship at the end of November, priced at $12,000

#nauticam #smc3 #mfo1

 

 

 

Although I remain confused at the first point above. 

 

Most macro lenses working distance  (i.e. the minimum focusing distance to record a 1:1) is always less than 1 meter anyways.

[Davide DB]

46 minutes ago, hedonist222 said:

It is expected to ship at the end of November, priced at $12,000

 

Nauticam site reports 457 USD

 

[hedonist222]

43 minutes ago, Davide DB said:

 

Nauticam site reports 457 USD

 

Yep. 

Definitely not US dollars.

Copied from a Facebook page in a far eastern language (could be Hong Kong or Taiwan dollars).

 

[Davide DB]

Ok, I'm a M43 shooter so from Nauticam port chart I get:

 

14-42mm:

 

 

Leica 45mm macro:

 

 

So I would expect that the maximum working distance will increase somehow.

[Floris Bennema]

23 hours ago, Troporobo said:

I don’t understand this at all.  I use a 60mm lens on m4/3 with a flat port and it will focus just fine at any distance from macro to infinity.  I don’t see any “aberrations” either.  What am I missing?  

The minimum focus distance of the 60mm lens is 19cm. For this reason I only use it in clear water.

[Troporobo]

Re-reading the announcement and thinking about everyone’s replies, it does seem to be about increasing the maximum focus distance when using a close-focus diopter.  I remain confused.  If I want to do that, I just flip the diopter out of the way and with that the maximum becomes infinity.  Why would I want another lens to cancel the effect of an accessory lens that can instead just be removed?  Hmmm . . . 

[ChipBPhoto]

I've done some checking around today and details remain thin at the moment.  The only thing confirmed is it is a stand alone lens, not used in conjunction with the SMC/CMC, which is what I figured.

 

If it can reduce the MFD for a normal macro lens (i.e. Sony 90 w/ 28cm MFD) and still have a substantially longer focus range than an SMC/CMC, that would be quite useful.  There have been plenty of times I wanted to get closer to the subject, but the MFD would not allow the lens to focus, while at the same time not wanting the extra magnification and super shallow DoF of the SMC/CMC.  This would also match up with the name "Mid-Range Focus Optimizer" in macro terms.  

 

Again, this is just me interpreting the verbiage, but I have no idea if this is actually what it does.

Guess we'll know more in the next 30-60 days....

 

Edited October 21 by ChipBPhoto

[Isaac Szabo]

Yeah Chip that's how I interpreted it too - with the important addition of improving image quality. I've long been bothered by the sharpness loss towards the edges with macros behind flat ports. Some diopters improve that, but then I lose the ability to focus on many of my normal macro subjects. So if this does what I think it does, it will be a welcome addition for me. 

[ChipBPhoto]

43 minutes ago, Isaac Szabo said:

Yeah Chip that's how I interpreted it too - with the important addition of improving image quality. I've long been bothered by the sharpness loss towards the edges with macros behind flat ports. Some diopters improve that, but then I lose the ability to focus on many of my normal macro subjects. So if this does what I think it does, it will be a welcome addition for me. 

Agreed!  In a FB comment I found by Alex Tattersall, it appears we may have it right.  He’s claiming a focus range on a Sony 90 to be about 2cm - 1m, with improved sharpness.  If correct, that would fantastic! 
 

That said, I’m waiting for the official confirmation and hands on testing.

 

[Isaac Szabo]

32 minutes ago, ChipBPhoto said:

Agreed!  In a FB comment I found by Alex Tattersall, it appears we may have it right.  He’s claiming a focus range on a Sony 90 to be about 2cm - 1m, with improved sharpness.  If correct, that would fantastic! 

 

Wow that does sound fantastic!

[RVBldr]

If that's true, I see a potential to use the 90mm in blackwater, which eliminates the current MFD on the 90mm and makes it unsuitable on the Sony. If so, this gives a potential option to the sub-par 50mm macro.

[ChipBPhoto]

15 minutes ago, RVBldr said:

If that's true, I see a potential to use the 90mm in blackwater, which eliminates the current MFD on the 90mm and makes it unsuitable on the Sony. If so, this gives a potential option to the sub-par 50mm macro.

100% agreed!!

 

[Dave_Hicks]

The Nikon 60mm macro will focus at damn near 0cm range behind a flat port. No diopter required.

 

From what I am reading, the SubSea+5 on a Nikon 105mm does about the same thing this MFO-1 does, at about 1/2 the price. It reduces the MFD from about 25cm to maybe 10.

[Isaac Szabo]

What primarily interests me is improving the image quality without losing focus range (though being able to focus closer is nice too). A 60mm on full frame behind a flat port loses quite a bit of sharpness towards the edges. I notice the same thing with the Sony 90mm though to a slightly lesser degree. Does the SubSea +5 improve image quality or just allow you to focus closer? And does it also maintain focus range out to a meter or so?

Edited October 22 by Isaac Szabo

[Chris Ross]

I found this image on Alex tattersall's FB page:

 

Seems like there might also be an MFO-2, the Orange one, click the link below to the page:

 

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/4zBDkhjCYwNzDXc9/

 

THere is also an image taken with it here on the Nauticam France FB page:

 

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/N1xMdPnShvxwjES7/

[Architeuthis]

9 hours ago, ChipBPhoto said:

Agreed!  In a FB comment I found by Alex Tattersall, it appears we may have it right.  He’s claiming a focus range on a Sony 90 to be about 2cm - 1m, with improved sharpness.  If correct, that would fantastic! 
 

That said, I’m waiting for the official confirmation and hands on testing.

 

 

20mm - 1000mm focus distance sounds indeed fantastic, but it is hard to believe: according to port charts, focus distance of Sony 90mm with SMC-1 is 45mm - 93mm (at 2.2x maximum magnification) and with SMC-2 is 22mm - 36mm (at 3.4x)...

 

[Edward Lai]

The MFO-1 (Midrange Focus Optimizer) was inspired by Dr. Alex Mustard and Ryan Canon.

 

Ryan and I have been discussing quite often on how much our optical products elevate image quality, in terms of improved resolution as well as better color rendition, over a flat port or dome port - being able to reduce most of the aberrations induced by the glass/water interface of the port surface.  So much so that we believes even if we build an add-on lens that only corrects aberrations (has no dioptric power at all) may well become a very useful product.

 

I kept that idea in mind for quite some time......some how my instinct tells me something is lacking, as a stand alone lens.

 

It was until the end of 2023 when Alex suggested a low power macro lens that I thought I got the answer, and decided to build some prototypes to find out how good these would work, by combining their ideas.  In April/May this year both Alex and I were diving with the first 2 prototypes, and we came out with these observations:

 

- Image quality is far better than shooting through a flat port.

- Literally no noticeable focus hunting as the MFO converts the focus range of the camera lens.

- (for Nikon Z105mm macro) focus range converted to 125mm-1100mm.

- Slightly increases magnification at MFD (Nikon Z105mm macro ~1.2X; Canon RF100mm macro ~1.6X).

 

Also, the first 2 prototypes had a bit more magnification power hence only focus to ~350mm and ~500mm respectively.  Both Alex and I were very amazed of how versatile these lenses were but a larger focus range would be more useful, while magnification isn't that important.  So another round of 2 prototypes having ~800mm and ~1000mm far focus targets were build and sent to a few dealers for final testing.  At the end, most of us regarded it no sense making 2 very similar lenses so the ~1000mm one was chosen and named MFO-1.  There is no MFO-2 at this moment.

 

Right now our engineers are busy measuring data with different camera lenses, and we will upload these data soon.  The MFO-1 will be shipping end of November.  Alex T (our UK dealer) and Aey (our Thai dealer) have some very nice pictures from MFO-1 test batch lenses on Facebook.  I believe a few more dealers will be uploading soon......

 

I am very thankful that Dr. Alex Mustard suggested a very inspirational and versatile lens to our society.  This opens up another window of creativity.

 

Edward

 

[Edward Lai]

A picture taken with one of the 1st MFO prototypes in May, 2024.  The one below is cropped.

 

Edward

Edited October 22 by Edward Lai

[ChipBPhoto]

Thank you so much @Edward Lai for the information, and bringing this new product to life.  And thank you @Alex_Mustard for your vision.  It does in fact appear to be a game changing approach with terrific results!  As someone who has taken a significant interest in macro photography, I see quite a number of scenarios where this will prove to be a tool leading to greater success.  I can’t wait to add it to my tool kit.

Edited October 22 by ChipBPhoto