Good and Cheap 10x Objective

rmpsrpms

I'm always looking for good deals on high quality optics, and I have found a "ringer" to alert you all to: the Bausch & Lomb 10x 0.25 16mm. In general I have not found B&L microscope objectives to be particularly good, at least the lower power ones. So when I bought this B&L 10x it was with modest expectations. But for $12 shipped, I could not pass up the opportunity. It turns out this objective is indeed very good, and is sharp out to the corners of the APS-C sensor. It also has excellent working distance, making the subject very easy to light. Best of all, it is very available on eBay for peanuts! One seller has 120 NOS objectives for sale at $25 each, so there should not be a shortage of supply.

For comparison, I tested my Nikon M10 0.25, my best 10x objective, in the same lighting situation. The Nikon requires a longer extension, so I had to adjust the bellows between these two, and I was not very careful about matching the magnification, but they are not too far off. I did a simple 6-image stack on both, which is actually not sufficient but will give you an idea of what the objectives can achieve.

Here are the comparison images:

B&L 10x


Nikon 10x

ricko

Very nice images.... I personally prefer Zeiss lenses, but the cheaper ones surely have their

place in the market - and that B&L looks great. Cheers, RickO

rmpsrpms

Zeiss are nice, but you need to be careful. Almost all Zeiss objectives require Zeiss eyepieces to complete their correction for chromatic aberrations. If you try to use them for photomacrography / macro photography, they create color and corner coverage issues. But they are indeed great for use with matched Zeiss eyepieces.