New guy here with Olympus question

Starting out in microscopy? Post images and ask questions relating to the microscope and get answers from our more advanced users on the subject.

Moderators: rjlittlefield, ChrisR, Chris S., Pau

jsteinhauer
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Jan 08, 2023 2:59 pm
Location: Minnesota, USA

New guy here with Olympus question

Post by jsteinhauer »

I've been lurking for a while, love the images, mostly the macro and close-up. I use a microscope in daily practice, and don't know that more time with one appeals to me, but would be interested in high magnification nature photography with objectives. I have learned that my infinity corrected PlanApo's and Fluorites need a tube lens off-scope, and I don't have access to finite objectives that actually belong to me. And as I have looked casually into this, I have noticed that not many enthusiasts use Olympus hardware, which I find somewhat surprising, since in the course of training and practice over the last 24 years, Olympus scopes seem the most prevalent in clinical use by a wide margin. There have to be piles of microscope parts in the secondary market. Is there a practical reason why Olympus optics are not popular here? Thank you in advance for any information. A link to a thread were this has been previously covered is equally welcome.

Jon S.

Scarodactyl
Posts: 1619
Joined: Sat Apr 14, 2018 10:26 am

Re: New guy here with Olympus question

Post by Scarodactyl »

Olympus is pretty popular, but their shorter 45mm parfocal distance means that there are limits on working distance vs nikon or especially mitutoyo, and their popularity for use in conventional microscopy keeps the prices up. A major upside is that modern olympus infinity objectives are internally corrected and thus don't need a specific tube lens or eyepiece so they can be used alongside mitutoyo or nikon objectives as long as the lack of parfocality isn't an issue. The olympus mplanfl 50x is a relatively popular objective for high mag work.

jsteinhauer
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Jan 08, 2023 2:59 pm
Location: Minnesota, USA

Re: New guy here with Olympus question

Post by jsteinhauer »

Thank you. This is good to know. I don't have a 50X dry objective; I've never seen one used in surgical pathology, only 40X with a 100X oil. I don't know, if I can be interested in the high mag photography as a hobby, but maybe, once I let the career wind down, which could be in eight days or eight years. I'll continue to enjoy reading this forum, either way.

enricosavazzi
Posts: 1474
Joined: Sat Nov 21, 2009 2:41 pm
Location: Västerås, Sweden
Contact:

Re: New guy here with Olympus question

Post by enricosavazzi »

jsteinhauer wrote:
Tue Jan 10, 2023 6:10 am
[...]I have learned that my infinity corrected PlanApo's and Fluorites need a tube lens off-scope, and I don't have access to finite objectives that actually belong to me.[...]
You probably already know, but the Olympus UIS/UIS2 objectives need a 180 mm tube lens, not 200 like other brands. The U-TLU is probably the simplest Olympus tube lens to use, and can be found on eBay at relatively reasonable prices. On occasion it is possible to find even better tube lenses in ultra-wide trinocular heads for the AX series of microscopes, which are difficult or impossible to use on the far more common BX stands and are sometimes available at low prices.
You can of course use a tube lens of different focal length, but the nominal magnification of the objectives no longer applies.
[...]I have noticed that not many enthusiasts use Olympus hardware, which I find somewhat surprising, since in the course of training and practice over the last 24 years, Olympus scopes seem the most prevalent in clinical use by a wide margin. There have to be piles of microscope parts in the secondary market. Is there a practical reason why Olympus optics are not popular here?[...]
No reason I know of, except that finite BH-series microscopes are cheaper and still relatively abundant on the second-hand market. They seem to be preferred by many PM.net members.

One thing to be aware of is that the series of BX-40 scopes have simplified illuminators and other parts, compared with the BX-50 series. As a whole, many of the BX-5* parts cannot be used on a BX-4* stand. I recommend the BX-5* series. I built my system around a BX-50 stand because I wanted a fully manual scope. I don't want to be left with a large and expensive paperweight if a simple but no longer available IC in a microscope controller goes bad.

The AX series may be interesting, but the stand is extremely heavy and requires an electronic controller. I once bought one on eBay, but Swedish Mail refused to forward it to me (likely because of the weight), and it went back to the US-based seller. The CX series is quite simplified, and with limited options.

The BX series also contains parts to build a modular industrial scope for incident illumination. It can use many of the parts commonly used on BX scopes. This can be a good way to build an incident-light system with UIS objectives and tube lenses (I have one, but don't use it as much as I probably should because I have several other alternatives). I think Olympus has discontinued most of its biomedical microscopes but has kept the modular one. Last I checked, Olympus wanted to sell its whole microscope division, like they did with the camera division. https://www.reuters.com/technology/japa ... 022-08-29/

I know nothing about the Olympus inverted scopes.
--ES

Pau
Site Admin
Posts: 6053
Joined: Wed Jan 20, 2010 8:57 am
Location: Valencia, Spain

Re: New guy here with Olympus question

Post by Pau »

Olympus UIS/UIS2 objectives are very good and (those with enough working distance) are useful for macro, I use an UPlanFl 4/0.13 and a LMPlanFL 20/0.4 for macro with unofficial tube lenses* because, as formerly pointed, they are "full corrected", meaning that they don't need aberration corrections at the tube lens or eyepiece.

On the other side, finite corrected Olympus do need those corrections done at the eyepiece, so despite being very good when paired with the adequate eyepieces, if used for direct projection (or with non compensating eyepieces) they show poor periphery.

*At the forum you have tons of info about the subject. The tube lens (also called converging lens) can be a camera tele lens (even some zoom), a good close-up lens like the Raynox 150 or the Sigma LSA I use, or others , no need of being the official microscope one.
Pau

jsteinhauer
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Jan 08, 2023 2:59 pm
Location: Minnesota, USA

Re: New guy here with Olympus question

Post by jsteinhauer »

Olympus UIS/UIS2 objectives need a 180 mm tube lens, not 200 like other brands. *At the forum you have tons of info about the subject. The tube lens (also called converging lens) can be a camera tele lens (even some zoom), a good close-up lens like the Raynox 150 or the Sigma LSA I use, or others , no need of being the official microscope one.
Yes, the former I knew. The latter I did not. A long time ago, I had an adapter for a C-mount to a consumer Nikon Coolpix camera that had some optics in it. I can no longer find it, and I have no idea where it might be. I think it was manufactured by Thales Optem, which no longer exists having been absorbed by some industrial optics company starting with Qi... Our primary vendor up here used to be Leeds, but they have narrowed their business to forensic microscopy. The Olympus vendor used to make contact from time to time, but not for years now.
No reason I know of, except that finite BH-series microscopes are cheaper and still relatively abundant on the second-hand market.
BH scopes are still around, but no one except for the most masochistically frugal use them daily.
One thing to be aware of is that the series of BX-40 scopes have simplified illuminators and other parts, compared with the BX-50 series...
I have never encountered a BX-50 series scope in general surgical pathology. I trained on BH's and BX-40s. With rare exception did I sign cases with faculty who did not have a BX-40, and I bought one shortly after starting out in professional practice. It and the BX-43 base I currently use with everything stripped from the BX-40 are fully manual. The nosepiece is coded, but that only matters, if you are capturing images using their software. I suppose it's not surprising that Olympus' clinical microscopy business is not stellar. Microscopes don't get replaced or upgraded very often. In my group, I'm the only one who has upgraded anything in the last 18 years. One partner bought a used scope in that time, and my upgrades were mostly for entertainment purposes, something new in workdays that start to feel a lot the same after a while. I buy computer keyboards for the same reason, sometimes, and they are a lot less expensive.

Scarodactyl
Posts: 1619
Joined: Sat Apr 14, 2018 10:26 am

Re: New guy here with Olympus question

Post by Scarodactyl »

Pathologists are well known for a love of microscopes (thanks Glaucomflecken) but the needs are usually pretty straightforward. Oddly enough hobby work can be more demanding in some ways.

I'm curious what makes the BH2 series masochistic in day to day use.

jsteinhauer
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Jan 08, 2023 2:59 pm
Location: Minnesota, USA

Re: New guy here with Olympus question

Post by jsteinhauer »

Scarodactyl wrote:
Fri Jan 13, 2023 6:46 am
Pathologists are well known for a love of microscopes (thanks Glaucomflecken) but the needs are usually pretty straightforward. Oddly enough hobby work can be more demanding in some ways.

I'm curious what makes the BH2 series masochistic in day to day use.
I prefer BX ergonomics, especially in positioning of ocular. If I were to start over, I might choose BX46 over BX40 or BX43 for the lower stage and extendable oculars. I had a partner who left the practice years ago who had one. The lower stage could be beneficial in alleviating ulnar nerve compression problems that arise from having your elbows chronically flexed when you have a higher stage. It was not a concern of mine right out of training, but I do have ulnar nerve distribution numbness now, if I don't consciously pay attention to elbow flexion, even avocationally. I may wake up in the middle of the night with ulnar distribution "asleep" hands, if my elbows are flexed. A senior partner has had ulnar nerve decompression surgery for the same. BX46 does not have a coded nosepiece available, and I don't think it has right or left handed stages, either.

Hobby microscopy is far more demanding, for sure, than what is required for good standard of surgical pathology practice. I don't need photographs to do my job, and most of my job is with 10x and 20x objectives. I need photographs for the dog and pony show called tumor conference. I could show them bladder cancer and call it breast cancer, and they would not know the difference.

Scarodactyl
Posts: 1619
Joined: Sat Apr 14, 2018 10:26 am

Re: New guy here with Olympus question

Post by Scarodactyl »

jsteinhauer wrote:
Sat Jan 14, 2023 4:24 am
I prefer BX ergonomics, especially in positioning of ocular. If I were to start over, I might choose BX46 over BX40 or BX43 for the lower stage and extendable oculars.
Ah yeah that makes sense. There was an eego head for the BH series but it's not common or cheap.
What do you mean by extendible oculars? Like ones that can be telescoped out like this baby? I've seen that option on some heads but never tried it, though it seems nice. All the Olympus infinity heads are cross-compatible though so it should be an option. I would think between chair height, spacers below the head and inclinable oculars it should be possible to get any desired configuration in theory.

pbraub
Posts: 91
Joined: Fri Feb 02, 2018 1:23 pm

Re: New guy here with Olympus question

Post by pbraub »

Hi,

i cant really follow why the BX40 stand is regarded as so much inferior. The light source is lower power (as is the source in the BX41 and 43) and the objective revolver is not interchangable in the default configuration. Also in contrast to the BX50 it does not have filters in the transmitted illumination path (they can be added via a filter cassete U-FC or just dropped in the light outlet).

The objective revolver/nospiece holder can be modified with the (very rare) part U-READB (or U-READB-SP) to accept interchangable revolvers with the standard dovetail. The only thing that does not fit is the 7-position nosepiece (it collides with some angle brackets on the frame).

So as far as i can tell the only thing difficult to realize on a BX40 is DIC (because it requires a nospiece with access for the slider). DIC and phase contrast might suffer from the low power illumination.
Everything above the frame should be compatible (with the exception of the BX2 arms of course).
Ergo tubes are/should be no problem (I use an U-TBI-3 on my BX40), but also U-TTBI, ETBI etc. should work. Super wide tubes work (U-SWTR).

Kind regards
Peter

PS nice to see other pathologists on the forum:-)

pbraub
Posts: 91
Joined: Fri Feb 02, 2018 1:23 pm

Re: New guy here with Olympus question

Post by pbraub »

Regarding ergonomics: The biggest thing for me in the BX world were the extra thick rubber sleeves for the coaxial table drive.
In recent times there was an add-on to extend the standard height (BX43/53 and surely BX40) table controls down to desk height. This is also very comfortable.

enricosavazzi
Posts: 1474
Joined: Sat Nov 21, 2009 2:41 pm
Location: Västerås, Sweden
Contact:

Re: New guy here with Olympus question

Post by enricosavazzi »

enricosavazzi wrote:
Mon Jan 16, 2023 2:02 pm
pbraub wrote:
Mon Jan 16, 2023 7:30 am
[...]Also in contrast to the BX50 it does not have filters in the transmitted illumination path (they can be added via a filter cassete U-FC or just dropped in the light outlet).[...]
Correct about the U-FC, but the BX-50 also has three filters built into the base of the stand. If you must use often one or two filters, you can replace the built-in filters with them. Especially if you modify the stand with LED illumination, you are not likely to need the blue filter (daylight illumination filter) for digital imaging, and you can swap it with something more useful. If you use one of the fluorescence or epi illuminators, they usually have at least one additional filter slot in the path from the objectives to the head, plus often also one slot for an analyzer.

When using UV-excited epifluorescence, one risks forgetting to remove the U-ANT nosepiece analyzer (used e.g. for transmitted DIC) from the optical path, which then gets rapidly damaged by UV. The analyzer slot in the fluorescence illuminator is meant to house an analyzer (usually U-AN) that replaces the U-ANT nosepiece analyzer (UV is filtered out before it reaches the U-AN analyzer). When not using an U-AN analyzer, this slot can also be used for a filter. The empty slot after the U-ANT is removed can be used for a filter as well. Not to mention the place for a filter above the field diaphragm. So there are multiple options for using filters on a BX-50, even without using the U-FC.
--ES

Post Reply Previous topicNext topic