Mosquito Larva, my first

Harald · Post by **Harald** » Sun May 22, 2011 11:57 am

Hi there,
This is my first atempt photographing through the microscope.

This is a 21 frame stack in ZS PMax
Canon EOS 7D...
The larva is from a preapered microscope slide kit from ebay[/img]

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Sun May 22, 2011 12:04 pm

Looking good!

Is this through the Amscope T230A? What objective?

--Rik

Harald · Post by **Harald** » Sun May 22, 2011 2:39 pm

Hi,
Yes this is with the Amscope T230A. The objective I used is the standard 4x that came with the scope..

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Sun May 22, 2011 2:50 pm

The absence of color fringing in the hairs at right edge of frame is very encouraging. Can you show us a crop of that region?

Did you get the basic achromats, or pay more for the plan achromats?

--Rik

Harald · Post by **Harald** » Mon May 23, 2011 9:18 am

Hi there Rik,
This is the basic objectives supported with the scope. I think I will buy some better one later. Need to learn more about the basics of microscope imaging first.
Here is the crop:

[/img]

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Mon May 23, 2011 9:37 am

Harald wrote:This is the basic objectives supported with the scope. I think I will buy some better one later. Need to learn more about the basics of microscope imaging first.

No telling about the other objectives, but this one looks quite good. Certainly it's better than my old Nikon CF E 4X, which at this scale has obvious color fringes and is noticeably soft toward the edges. Yours looks sharp and completely free of fringes.

--Rik

Harald · Post by **Harald** » Mon May 23, 2011 10:04 am

I have one objective that I bought earlier. This says "Plan 10/0,25 160/0,17
The one I used with this image says 4/0,1 160/0,17
I think I will invest in a better 4x objective later.
The Plan objective is the best ??

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Mon May 23, 2011 11:13 am

Harald wrote:The Plan objective is the best ??

Standard wisdom says "yes", but there's not a lot of hard evidence published.

Plan is clearly better for single-shot photography, because non-plan achromats have field curvature that limits their ability to focus a wide field all at once.

With focus stacking, the issue of field curvature goes away and you're just left to decide which objective is sharper.

Here the standard wisdom is that plan objectives incorporate additional corrections that make them sharper as well as flatter field.

The argument sounds good, but those additional corrections can also cause other problems. For example at http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... php?t=9393, I compared two objectives and found that the plan does slightly better inside a certain field but much worse outside that field.

So unfortunately, I don't think it's obvious what is best for your purposes.

Based on the one image you're showing here, I think you would have to spend a surprising lot of money to do much better than what you have at 4X.

Can you confirm, please, that the objective you used is the one shown HERE? I am thinking some tests need to be run...

--Rik

NikonUser · Post by **NikonUser** » Mon May 23, 2011 11:30 am

Rik: I got some decent images with a very inexpensive 4x

http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... =genitalia

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Mon May 23, 2011 11:48 am

Thanks for the reminder. I remember having seen that one, though I wouldn't have thought to look it up.

As usual, my interest is mainly in what to recommend. I'm always on the lookout for new manufacture "known good" objectives.

At 10X, based on my own tests, I'm comfortable recommending the Nikon Finite Conjugate 10X NA 0.25 objective available at Edmund. But I've seen and heard less good results about the corresponding 4X, and certainly I'm not excited about my own Nikon E that appears quite similar. The famous JML 21mm f/3.5 is a very cool lens, but it was only ever available on the surplus market and now is hard to find at all. And so on. If I can identify even a single inexpensive 4X or 5X microscope objective that's routinely available and has a good cost/quality tradeoff, I'll be a happier camper.

--Rik

ChrisR · Post by **ChrisR** » Mon May 23, 2011 12:42 pm

It just happens I saw a Meiji test, not so good, yesterday. Another of NU's!
http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... ight=meiji

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Mon May 23, 2011 6:05 pm

Harald,

Yes it does look good! What I was also interested in seeing were the results that you get with the adapter you have. It seemed like it might be a good solution for objectives that do not need a great amount of chromatic correction (by design) via the eyepiece. It has done quite nicely here.

Now I look forward to seeing some more images from this 4X as well as your more higher powered objectives.

Simon W · Post by **Simon W** » Fri Jul 01, 2011 10:42 pm

Nice pics Harald. Yes, I too would love to see any other higher magnification pics you've taken, as like you I'm a beginner and wondering if an Amscope is a good buy for the ridiculous price. Are u still happy with it? I can't view your model on their site any more, I'm thinking of a darkfield capable t490