50mm aspherical lense

Would a quality aspherical lense increase throw significantly over a cheap poor quality DX one?

If yes please point me in the direction of a good quality 50mm aspherical lense with focal length less than 35mm and for less than $40.

I couldn't find any threads about this

Well, looks like I'm going to have to pester saabluster again, or maybe ra this time. Who else knows a lot about aspherical lenses?????

I have quite a few lenses from DX - some are excellent - some are awful. The DX customer feed back forum for the product is your best help.

Exactly what do you mean by "increase throw" ? - smaller square ?

Increase throw = increase the distance that it will illuminate objects at. From a previous talk with saabluster I've learnt that a lot of light is wasted outside of the square beam as chromatic abberation. with this lense it's so bad I've actualy got 3 squares, there's the normal one in the middle, a distorted yellow one overlapping the middle one and a distorted blue one on the oposite side to the yellow one also overlapping the middle one. It looks like some weird sci-fi special effect.

PS: http://www.dealextreme.com/p/50mm-18mm-2-80-degree-glass-optics-12834 that is the one I got, reviews are very good. Maybe the two I bought where from a bad batch

And it only gets to about 200 yards before it's almost impossible to see things

Hey Jacob,

The companies that I got my aspherical lenses from was Melles Griot and the Surplus Shed.
That was during the time when a lot of CPF members were building Mag-aspherical lights a few years back.
They had good quality glass optics.
Good luck.

I had a look at the surplusshed website they've got alot of lenses in all sizes and focal lengths except what I'm looking for, might keep an eye on their website incase they get some more in. Did you find the high cost of the melles griot lenses worth it?

I thought it was worth it because it worked with the setup I used it in.
I could have gone through a lot of lenses and wasted a lot of time and money.
Fortunately there was a lot of activity on the threads at that time and I zeroed in on what I needed.

You probably have read this one already:
Formula for calculating throw using aspheric lens

Trial-and-error worked for me to find the best lens.

JacobJones said:

PS: http://www.dealextreme.com/p/50mm-18mm-2-80-degree-glass-optics-12834 that is the one I got, reviews are very good. Maybe the two I bought where from a bad batch

Click to expand...

Do you know what is the focal length for that one?

nikosb said:

Do you know what is the focal length for that one?

Click to expand...

Just measured it for you, approximately 30-32 mm.

Can't believe that this thread is so old now, how time slips away when you're not looking.