Micro-photography - practical magnification

[TravisH]

Hi all,

Apologies if this is a simple question, but I am trying to work out the effective magnification of my photomicroscopy setup. I have a 2x 30mm to DSLR mount, connected to a trinocular port of my microscope, which is then working as normal through the microscope objective (e.g. 4x).

So my question is, some of the literature for the DSLR adapter mentions 10X effective magnification, but also mentions 2X, so in this case is the effective magnification 8x, or more like 40x?

If it helps, I shoot with an APS-C camera, and just wanted to get a better idea of what actual magnifications I am working with, as I had always thought it was 2x * objective magnification but am not sure if that is correct?

Many thanks!

[Charles Krebs]

If your adapter is set up properly, and there are 2X optics in the adapter, and there are no other (magnifying or reducing) optics between the objective and the adapter... then your magnification on camera sensor is 2X the objective power (so 8X on sensor with a 4X objective). This is the case regardless of the sensor size.

Sometimes product literature tends to be confusing. Since most people view through 10X eyepieces, the adapter folks sometimes say that an adapter will provide the the "equivalent" view seen by eye (with 10X eyepieces) on the camera sensor. (But there are too many variables to really make such a statement).

[TravisH]

Thanks, Charles.

I thought that might be the case, so the effective magnification is really going to be 2 * the objective assuming no magnification or reduction (which I don't believe there is any on this microscope).

Now to brush up on understanding the Na, and all that other fun stuff