Panadol crystals

banania · Post by **banania** » Sat Mar 18, 2017 7:50 am

First two are Mitu 20x 0.42 + 200mm tube lense. Last one is a bit cropped 2x.

Beatsy · Post by **Beatsy** » Sat Mar 18, 2017 8:20 am

First two are smashing - lovely and sharp. I like seeing the context in the third too.

Is this just panadol dissolved in water and allowed to dry?

I assume this is crossed polars too, right? But is it on a macro rig? If so, where/how do you fit the second polariser (analyser) behind the objective?

banania · Post by **banania** » Sat Mar 18, 2017 9:48 am

Thanks Beatsy.

I crushed a few tablets and used acetone as solvent, then put the suff through a coffee filter. That's then fairly pure paracetamol left. It could still be purified a bit through freezing but I didn't go through that extra step.

I have a linear polarizer filter between tube lens and Mitu and another linear polarizer (polarizing sheet) between the lamp and the slide, so it is the normal setup for crossed polarizers with transmitted light. But they are not crossed here as I was going for these light colors. So it is maybe 50% crossed and I have also a diy cellophan retarder between the polarizing sheet and the slide. You get lighter colors when crosspolarizing just a bit and then using thin wave plate retarders. That's my experience anyhow...

There is actually a problem with putting the linear polarizer filter between the tube lens and Mitu as Mitu is heavy and the turning ring of the polarizer filter is a bit floppy coming a bit apart from the stable part of the filter because of the weight of Mitu. With Nikon 10x 0.25 there is no such problem as it is not so heavy. I am looking for a more robust (but cheap) linear polarizing filter for my tube lens, so if this is a known problem advice on the matter would be much appreciated.

Here are two more from the same slide (maybe different retarder etc...)

Olympusman · Post by **Olympusman** » Sat Mar 18, 2017 12:30 pm

Elegant images. I think they could use a tad more saturation in Photoshop, though.

Mike

banania · Post by **banania** » Sun Mar 19, 2017 5:32 am

Thanks Mike for looking and your tip about saturation too. I don't have a good calibrated screen and these are sRGB, so it is bit of a guess how the images will display on other screens with different settings for brightness, contrast etc. My screen has five predefined settings which I can choose from a menu and the images look quite different with each of these five setting. I find it difficult to color manage sRGB images... maybe I am consistently a little timid with post-edit sRGB saturation.

Harald · Post by **Harald** » Sun Mar 19, 2017 7:13 am

Hi there,
Thanks for the lovely images and information.
This is something to try and great inspiration...

JohnKoerner · Post by **JohnKoerner** » Sun Mar 19, 2017 8:07 pm

Interesting and beautiful subject.

Troels · Post by **Troels** » Mon Mar 20, 2017 2:26 am

Very beautiful.
I especially like the last one. The dramatic shapes and the soft colors are fascinating.

Troels

banania · Post by **banania** » Mon Mar 20, 2017 3:59 am

Thanks for your nice comments. Last one is also my favorite.

Harald, I saw some nice tartaric acid images at your Flickr site. I've tried tartaric many times but not with much success. I've bought the stuff from two different suppliers, but neither crystallizes nicely with interference colors. Was there any tricks involved when you did tartaric? Did you use water as solvent?

Panadol crystals

Panadol crystals

Images