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March 3, 2022

Fujinon’s CF8ZA-1S Lens Brings High Precision To Product Inspection And Measurement

Production lines can be pretty loud and cause a lot of noise and vibrations. For this reason, you need a lens for inspecting products that can handle some shock and vibration, all while producing a quality image.

High Precision Lens For High Precision Applications


The CF8ZA-1S works great for manufacturing environments because it is designed for use with those machine vision cameras and built to withstand rough environments. While still capturing crystal clear images with Fujifilm’s proprietary 4D high-resolution technology that maintains high resolution from the center to corner even when working distance and F-Value are changed.

The CF8ZA-1S maintains brightness and clarity from center to corner of the image to prevent false recognition noise from electronic correction, with the lenses HRI or High Relative Illumination optical design.


Anti Shock & Vibration Capabilities 

On top of being one of the most compact lenses (at 39mm external diameter), it’s also one of the toughest with shock and vibration capabilities that allow the focus and iris to be adjusted manually and still being able to meet the Anti Shock and Vibration requirements.

Focus and iris rings are locking, and each ring has three different locking holes that can hold the locking knob and allow the lens to be locked into place and maintain variations of the optical axis equal to or below 10µm. 

The Full Series Of Lenses

The CF-ZA-1S lenses come in 6 different sizes for just about any type of machine vision application with focal length sizes ranging between the 8mm lens up to the 50mm lens, check out the chart below for all the different models.


https://aegoptics.com/product-category/fujinon-machine-vision-lens/

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Fujinon SX800 Telephoto Technology For Machine Vision

Long distance machine vision applications just got easier with the Fujinon SX800.

It used to be surveillance and security was the only use for zoom and telephoto lenses. But the clarity from technology like the Fujinon SX800 allows for machine vision applications.

Vehicle Identification

The 40x zoom of the SX800 would be an advantage at a gravel quarry or mining operation. The need to auto-identify the count between dump trucks versus cars would be useful. Or license plate recognition at that distance enables auto-identification of the dump truck; which could be tied into auto-invoicing of that contractor. The 800mm lens with its 40x zoom allows for mounting at a distance where electrical power is readily available, and the dust levels are lower. This new Fujinon camera system allows for those technological advances to be applied in that rugged environment.

Integrated lens & camera enables drone use

There is a unique aspect of the SX800 that increases its viability for drone platforms. The camera and lens are integrated into a single elongated tube with two flat sides. This allows for easy mounting within the tight confines of a drone’s framework.

Solving the problem of Haze

It is common to have haze interfere with an image’s clarity when using telephoto lenses. Dust particulate and atmospheric conditions contribute to that frustration. The SX800 solves this with a compensation algorithm and high speed computations. Heat haze is handled easily so objects maintain clarity. No external device is needed for heat haze because the multi-layer coatings support a wide range of wavelengths from visible to near infrared. This boosted light transmittance effectively controls lens flair and ghosting.

Optical Zoom versus Digital Zoom To Spot Endangered Rhinos

It is easy to forget that optical zoom is superior over digital zoom. A loss of resolution occurs with digital zoom as a mini-processor is used to create the zoomed image. Whereas the optical zoom method is a true zoom with no loss of resolution.

This level of clarity over long distances allows for a license plate to be read from over 1 kilometer by the SX800. Or the distinction of an endangered rhino versus a common water buffalo for environmental conservation efforts. A pole-mounted SX800 on slow rotation could automate wildlife monitoring over distances that a human with binoculars simply could not achieve.

Rapid Image Acquisition

With a rapid autofocus speed of down to 0.3 seconds, the SX800 can adjust for changes in the size of an object at the focal location. If vehicles entering a location have to negotiate a traffic calming feature then there would be enough time to ensure clear focus on the vehicle and its license plate. Conventional camera systems used to take up to 10 seconds to achieve autofocus. Having it down to 0.3 seconds is a significant advantage of the SX800.

Machine Vision Applications For the Great Outdoors

Machine vision applications are not always within close distances like factory environments. The advantages of an integrated camera and lens like the Fujinon SX800 expands the potential use cases for machine vision into the far reaches of the outdoors.

What Is a Telecentric Lens?

Telecentric lenses can be the singular solution for machine vision applications with long distances from the target to the cameras. Usually used in long-distance cameras, their technology is well suited when physical environments force a gap beyond the focal length of ordinary lenses. Those gaps can cause distortions with ordinary lenses, which can render their machine vision use for metrology and quality control useless.

What Is a Telecentric Lens?

Wikipedia has an excellent technical description of telecentric lens technology. To paraphrase, they are compound lenses that produce orthographic views of a subject. Hence, the chief rays or oblique rays that pass through the center of the aperture run parallel to the optical axis. This can lie in front of or behind the system. What this translates to is a huge field of view that is condensed to a small image. This is how these telecentric lenses can take such magnificent shots. An example of them for machine vision applications is here.

What Makes a Telecentric Lens?

A telecentric lens produces an orthographic image with the pupil (entrance or exit) set at infinity (unlimited distance). Whereas a normal lens has a well defined length (focal length).

While conventional lenses have angular fields of view, telecentric lenses give a much more accurate view of perspective. Conventional lenses skew depth perception. Hence, the distance between two objects seems to be smaller or larger. With telecentric lenses, the field of view is constant. This eliminates the parallax error that is characteristic to standard lenses.

There are two main types of telecentric lenses. The first is object-space telecentric that has the entrance pupil at infinity. These types of lenses are often used in machine vision systems. This is because image magnification is independent of the distance or position of the object in the field of view.

The second type of lens is the image-space telecentric lens. These are lenses with exit pupil at infinity. They are used with image sensors and don’t tolerate a wide range of angles of incidence.

Distortion

A good use of telecentric lenses is in the study of metrology. Since these lenses have lower distortion values than standard lenses, they are better used for measurement. Distortion can cause parallax error, which can lead to inaccurate measurement.

Due to the low value of distortion that they provide, telecentric lenses are known for greater non-monotonic wave distortion. The magnitude of that distortion is low enough so that the object under inspection is not too severely affected. However, it’s still important to check the distortion specs to calibrate the imaging systems.

Tips for Choosing the Best Telecentric Lens

  • Calculate Focal Length: Remember to calculate the focal length of the lens depending on what you are using it to shoot. If it exceeds the commonly available lenses, then telecentric lenses may be elevated for consideration.
  • Choose a Sensor Type: Choose between a charge-coupled device (CCD) and a complimentary-metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS). The differences are practically non-existent now, but the former have better image quality and light sensitivity. The latter have better speed and on-chip system integration.
  • Color or Monochrome Camera: A lot of vision systems use color cameras. However, some machine vision applications use monochrome cameras because they cost less. But color variances during quality control may be the only way to detect abnormalities. The value of a telecentric lens provides truer color representation at a distance.
  • Camera Output Format Frame Rates: Output formats usually affect the frame rates achievable. Hence, whenever choosing the machine vision lens, check compatibility with your application and operating system. For instance, if you’re currently on older versions of Windows, then consider upgrading to Windows 10. Older versions may not be compatible with your current lens.

Using Telecentric Lenses For Unusually Long Focal Lengths

The telecentric lense will provide the highest quality image when there is a gap between the target and lense which exceeds the focal length of standard lenses. Using telecentric technology enables a machine vision application to render the highest accuracy with its image processing.

TAMRON: A BILLION DOLLAR SUPPLIER OF MACHINE VISION LENSES

HOW GOOD ARE TAMRON LENSES?

Who has heard of Tamron the lens manufacturer? Did you know their optical engineering dates back before World War II? With over 5,000 employees in Japan, Tamron has likely sold over $100 billion dollars worth of lenses around the world.

WHERE ARE TAMRON LENSES MADE?

Tamron lenses are made in Saitama, Japan. Can you imagine a production facility of over 270,000 square feet? That is the size of Tamron’s plant to the north of Tokyo. An interesting display of their lens manufacturing process is here.

WHAT KIND OF LENSES DOES TAMRON PRODUCE?

The industrial applications for Tamron lenses includes machine vision, drones, automation, and surveillance uses. They provide board-mount, varifocal, fixed focal, c-mount and infrared lenses. Their lenses come in both C- and CS-mount. In March of this year, Tamron announced the release of an industry leading Ø29mm compact body on a 5 MP 1/1.2” fixed focal lens. That is just one of multiple advances they have been putting out to the machine vision market recently. As a publicly traded company with over $5B in annual revenue, they are a major contender that is not sitting back on their laurels.

WHO MAKES TAMRON LENSES?

Japan has produced a number of lens and camera luminaries like Tamron, Nikon, Pentax and Minolta. To aid the rebuilding of Japans economy after WWII, it was suggested by Herbert Keppler to focus efforts on producing photography equipment. Taisei Optical was founded in 1950 by a well respected Japanese optical engineer, the late Mr. Takeyuki Arai. His leadership of the company over several decades was legendary.

Mr. Arai led the company to be one of the first to employ computer-aided drafting for optical engineering. Tamron’s heyday in the 70’s and 80’s stemmed from their T mount system then the Adaptall mounting system.

WHERE DO I BUY TAMRON LENSES

Our world of machine vision is one filled with high quality that is often out of the public eye. There are no retail stores for Tamron. Instead, they empower distributors like us at AegOptics.com to interface with their end users.

Those looking for machine vision and automation application lenses would do well to consider the Tamron line. Their long history lends itself to taking a close look.

WILL A COMPUTAR C MOUNT LENS WORK FOR MACHINE VISION?

Machine vision applications are complex enough to piece together. Having this lens mount issue answered will make it easier. Yes, a Computar c mount lens will work for machine vision applications.

The majority of cameras are built with the c mount connection for the lense. Every now and again, a niche use case may spec a cs mount. In that case, a Computar cs mount lens is available.

Difference Between the C Mount and CS Mount for Machine Vision

The majority of Computar machine vision lenses are c mount types. However, they do carry another mounting type called the cs mount. The cs mount was the predecessor to the c mount. As camera mounting options proliferated, the c mount was increasingly adopted. One advantage stems from the 5mm longer distance that exists from the mounting position to the focal point. In certain use cases, like security camera systems, the shorter distance of the cs mount grants the camera an increased range of certain abilities.

The c mount is the modern standard. The specifications of the threaded connection ring and distance from focal point to the mount is standardized. So any camera that is c mount capable will accept a c mount lens.

Which Machine Vision Application Needs Which Type Of Lens

Before considering the lens mount specification, it is more important to determine the general type of lens. This stems from the use case of the image within the machine vision application. Will the image be a simple pattern recognition, near-infrared, or demand the highest precision of measurement between pixels within the image? An excellent article about this is here (link).

When precision measurements are needed a telecentric lens may be best. This allows for the most accurate readings regardless of where measuring points are in the field of view. Natural optical aberrations are offset by features of telecentric technology. But fixed focus lenses trade off their simplicity for the existence of those optical aberrations.

If pattern recognition, not precision measurement, is the main requirement for the machine vision application, then a fixed focus lense could be sufficient. Thermal images or near-infrared environments call for SWIR lenses. These short wave infrared capable lenses grant the imaging input necessary.

If the target will have varied distances, like in mobile robot applications, then a zoom lense may be called for.

Examples of Lens Types For Machine Vision Applications

 There are plenty of c mount options for Computar lenses to be used in machine vision applications.

  • For the rugged environments with the need for vibration resistance, shock and temperature resistance, the MPW2 series.
  • For use cases needing infrared there are options like the MPYIR series.
  • High magnification environments needing the advantage of telecentric technology can be served by the TEC. The advantages of telecentric technology are explained here (link):

Conclusion

The c mount consideration is a lower consideration in comparison to the end use of the machine vision application. If the selected camera is a cs mount, Computar has options there also. But in general, starting from the use case, there are plenty of Computar c mount lenses to choose for machine vision applications.

How To Get Higher Resolution For Machine Vision

Two scenarios dictate the need for zooming in with machine vision: forced distance and micro environments. Not every situation allows for the camera to be physically close enough to the observed area. And there are plenty of situations where miniaturization has exceeded the magnification abilities of 2 megapixel cameras. Using a 23mp lens and camera can provider that higher resolution for machine vision.

A 23 megapixel (23mp) basically has six times higher resolution than a 4k camera. However, to get that level of detail, both the lens and the camera have to be capable, not just one or the other. Let’s look at their advantages in forced distance and micro environments.

Forced Distance

Forced distance is when physical barriers prevent you from putting the camera close enough to get the pixel resolution you want. This could be in an environment that has a high injury risk; like rapid mechanical movements, chemical vapors, high temperature or pressurization.

Another forced distance situation can stem from having no reasonable locations to mount the camera system. The clarity from a 2mp lens may be too fuzzy at the number of feet of the closest mounting point. A 23mp lens will suddenly jump that gap and deliver the clarity your system needs.

The field of view from a 23 megapixel lens and camera system might also make the difference. If your object needs 12 degrees from a 6 foot distance, then you can achieve that. Whereas an older 2mp system may have only granted 5 degrees from that distance.

Micro Environments

Micro environments are when something is too small for normal magnification methods. Miniaturization of components has exceeded the magnification abilities of some systems. Circuit boards are an easy example to use.

Handheld magnification and even desktop magnification stations used to give the human eye sufficient “zoom” capability to inspect a circuit board. But modern PCB manufacturing has reduced their effectiveness.

Software aided inspection systems can artificially zoom beyond the mechanical zoom abilities of a camera and lens. But even those magnification abilities may be outclassed by how far miniaturization has gone. So those systems can upgrade the internal camera and lens components to the higher resolution specifications (ie. 12mp or 23mp). Upgraded components can regain the necessary visualization of the miniaturized circuits. Or actually exceed prior abilities.

Bionic Body Parts

The recreational camera market has had 8 and 12 megapixel capabilities for years. But the adoption curve of 12 and 23 megapixel into machine vision applications is ongoing. Giving your machine vision solution a 12 or 23 megapixel capability is like having a bionic eye implant. It takes an adjustment period. But once you dial it in, you succeed at seeing the future.

 

 

FUJINON HF-SA SERIES LENSES

Fujinon-AEGOPTICS

HF-SA series

FUJINON HF-SA series is designed to achieve high resolution up to 5 megapixels (3.45µm pixel pitch) compatible with 2/3″ sensors.

HF-SA series specification sheet

Model Compatible format sizes Focal length
(mm)
4/3 1.1 1 1/1.2 2/3 1/1.8 1/2 1/3
HF12.5SA-1 － － － － ● ● ● ● 12.5
HF16SA-1 － － － － ● ● ● ● 16
HF25SA-1 － － － － ● ● ● ● 25
HF35SA-1 － － － － ● ● ● ● 35
HF50SA-1 － － － － ● ● ● ● 50
HF75SA-1 － － － － ● ● ● ● 75
Black Fujinon HF-SA Series Lenses on White Background
FUJINON HF-SA series

● Compatible sensor size (std.): Ideal size to maximize the target resolution.

Main features

Low distortion

FUJINON HF-SA series thoroughly minimizes distortion which causes problems in applications requiring high accuracy such as dimension measurement.

* Simulated image

High performance in close-up shooting

The rear focusing method* enables high performance even in close-up shooting. * HF12.5SA-1 and HF16SA-1

Low F-number

The low F-number up to F1.4 ensures a clear image even in low light situations.

Enough peripheral light amount

Enough light is captured even at the edges of the image, which contributes to stable inspection accuracy.

–https://aegoptics.com/product-category/fujinon/

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