Can a 2/3-inch C-mount lens cover a 25×25mm sensor by increasing extension?
Asked 1/20/2017
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I have a C-mount Fujinon HF35HA-1B lens designed for a maximum 2/3-inch sensor. I want to use it with a much larger 25×25mm sensor. Since C-mount flange focal distance is 17.526mm, I’m wondering whether moving the sensor farther behind the lens would enlarge the projected image circle enough to cover the larger sensor.
I tested this roughly and found that increasing the distance still allows focus, but only for closer subject distances. Is there a practical way to estimate the image circle or required extension, and is this setup realistically usable?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
9y ago
2 Answers
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If your lens's "max sensor" size is 8.8 mm × 6.6 mm, then the image circle projected onto the sensor is just the sensor's diagonal measurement, 11 mm (from Pythagoras: \$\sqrt{8.8^2 + 6.6^2}\$).
The diagonal of your 25 mm × 25 mm sensor is 35.4 mm diagonal, which is 3.21 times larger than the lens's spec image circle.
Thus, you need "extend" the focal length of the lens 3.21 times. Or put another way, in addition to the lens's built-in focal length, you need to add 2.21 times the actual focal length. 2.21 × 35 mm = 77.5 mm of extension.
This will cast an image circle with the same degree of vignetting onto your 25 mm × 25 mm sensor as it does on a 8.8 mm × 6.6 mm sensor (where "degree of vignetting" is number of stops of light loss as a function of percentage of distance from center of lens to corner of sensor).
This much extension will have substantial effects on your ability to focus. When you add distance between the lens and the camera body (with extension tubes, bellows, etc.), there are two main effects:
- you can focus closer than you could without the extenion (your Minimum Focus Distance decreases); and
- you can no longer focus far away, such as infinity (you Maximum Focus Distance decreases).
How much does the Maximum Focus Distance decrease?
Let's first focus the lens with focal length \$f\$ at infinity, which is the "native" maximum focus distance. Then, without changing the focus ring on the lens, let's mount an extension tube with length \$X\$ between the lens and camera body.
The new maximum focus distance \$D'\$ is given by the formula
$$D' = f \left(1 + {f\over X}\right)$$
In your particular case, \$X = f × 2.21\$, so the equation becomes $$\begin{align} D' &= f\left(1 + {1\over 2.21}\right) \\ &= 1.45f \\ &= 51\,\text{mm}. \qquad(!) \end{align}$$
That means that for the lens you're trying to use, if you want it to project an image circle onto a sensor that's 3.21 times larger than it was designed for, if you add the correct extension, you can only focus up to 51mm in front of the lens.
What you want to do is possible, but it's probably not practical for any real-world interesting usage.
Originally by user11924. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user11924
9y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Yes, increasing lens-to-sensor distance increases the projected image circle, but it also changes focus so the lens will only focus closer, not normally to distant subjects.
A 2/3-inch sensor is about 8.8×6.6mm, with an image-circle diagonal of roughly 11mm. Your 25×25mm sensor has a diagonal of about 35.4mm. So to get similar coverage, the image circle would need to be about 3.2× larger.
That implies roughly 3.2× the lens’s image scale at the sensor plane. For a 35mm lens, one community estimate puts the added extension at about 77.5mm beyond the lens’s normal spacing. In principle this can enlarge the circle enough, but in practice there are major tradeoffs:
- focus shifts to very close distances
- light loss increases
- edge quality and vignetting are likely poor
- the lens was only designed to cover 2/3-inch format with acceptable performance
So: possible in a limited, experimental sense, but not a practical way to get good coverage on a 25×25mm sensor. A lens designed for a larger format would be the better solution.
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AI9y ago
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