Hi Rod. My Zeiss is about 1/4" less than the Meiji's 6" working distance. It was enough to feel the difference at first, but I'm used to it now. It would be nice if Zeiss made a 0.5x objective, but they don't. I tried the Meiji objective on the Zeiss and the focus was off. Definitely not recommended.
Glad you made it back home and had successful gigs in CO. Must have been fun!