Davy - That is a good idea to use a bellows, I should have thought of that :oops: . My current one has light leaks and the cloth is beyond repair, but I'll look into getting a tube and maybe doing some home repairs on it. Otherwise, its cable ties to strap down the tubes to a lens plate. Thanks Lou ...

Rik, Chris - unfortunately my 58 mm extension tubes are not threaded, they have Canon EF compatible mounts - seemed like a good idea at the time. The configuration is about 120mm of these tubes attached to the camera's lens mount, followed by a reverse 150 Raynox, then either a 10x or 20x objective ...

Hunting through a specimen of skarn marble rock from eastern Fresno County, California, I wanted to get images of the clear chondrodite crystals in the white calcite marble, and found one area that featured a nice black ludwigite crystal. After composing some other images, came across a similar situ...

Yikes! I'll take a close look at the lens under the microscope, maybe I'll see something...

thanks for the tip, Scarodactyl

Thanks for the comments! If I wasn't clear, I currently am using 58 mm tubes, which are strong but not stiff, these things seem to wave in the breeze. Since I couldn't find a commercial solution to clamping them down, I thought about going to 42 mm. I am going to get a 200 mm Arca-compatible lens pl...

Again, thanks everyone for the comments. I did indeed end up getting the Mitutoyo 20x with the horrible barrel damage. Wasn't as bad as the posted images, and there does not seem to be anything wrong with the objective. Test images show nearly no CA of any type. However, there is a noticeable color ...

For some time 42 has been the answer to the 'ultimate question', but why not 58mm instead? When using 10X or 20x infinite focus objectives, with the usual reversed Raynox 150mm, does tube diameter matter? I would guess that the larger diameter may help to reduce reflections, etc., but could be wrong...

Thank you - appreciate the answers. Axial CA is bad for the minerals and crystals that I photograph, so I'll go with the Mitutoyo, if its bad the seller has a return policy

Fantastic, thanks Rik!

We are all familiar with the need to set DMap Contrast threshold manually about 50% through the process. Rarely (OK, occasionally) I pick the wrong value and the final image looks like crap. Is there a way to go back to the 'set contrast threshold' slider without having to start the stacking process...

So far I've had two orders for a Mity 20x objective cancelled and refunded in the past month, after receiving confirmation of order and payment :? I've a lead on two additional objective lenses, on is another Mity 20x, but with significant superficial? damage (appears as if a gorilla took a pipe wre...

Thank you Scarodactyl, that's what I wanted to know.

This purple guy is for sale on e-bay, the seller has five of them : Mitutoyo Objective Lens M Plan Apo NUV 20x /0.40 ∞/0 f=200 I don't need the near UV correction - but, will this work just as well as a 'normal' 20x for stacking, the working distance is given as 17 mm, which should be fine for my pu...

Rik - that's what I figured when ZS does alignment, very much appreciate the example. Back in the day I used a simple JavaScript snippet to effect a mouse-over to swap images. Also, I should have been more clear - the two images posted above were single shots from the middle of each stack. I haven't...

So, I took two stacks of the same subject, at 5X. First pass was with a UV-LW lamp, the second was with flash. Each stack is 22 images and each requires alignment. Ultimately, after processing each separately, they will be presented as fluorescent overlay over visible, so the user can slide or switc...