Reflected Light - Optiphot Series

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zed
Posts: 72
Joined: Thu Feb 07, 2019 1:35 pm
Location: Houston, TX
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Reflected Light - Optiphot Series

Post by zed »

Hi All,

I recently started using a Nikon BD MPlan 60X/0.7 finite objective and have found it to be a good addition to my collection. I am interested in adapting a reflected light setup similar to my infinity based system. Rather than reinvent the wheel – I thought I might try to use the lens system from existing older Optiphot microscopes to make this work. There should be 2 optics required – a negative lens to create the infinity space and a tube lens to refocus onto the sensor. I say should because I am really not familiar with how the older finite systems handled reflected light.

There seem to be two variations of reflected light assemblies for the Optiphot on eBay, one for fluorescence and another for reflected BF/DF:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Nikon-Optiphot ... Sw7gdch-xH

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Nikon-Epi-Fluo ... SwuZpbpt7U

My question is this – it is difficult to tell from these listings if the necessary lenses are part of these assemblies or not. It seems that the first negative lens might be – but that maybe there might be an additional optic located in the binocular tube that is not part of these assemblies.

Can someone point me in the right direction? Do ray trace diagrams of the optical path exist for this microscope series?

Ideally, my goal would be to remove these lenses and adapt them to an existing custom system.

Thank you in advance for any insight you can provide!

-Jason

Scarodactyl
Posts: 1617
Joined: Sat Apr 14, 2018 10:26 am

Re: Reflected Light - Optiphot Series

Post by Scarodactyl »

No lenses are needed. The reason that the finite nikon metallurgical objectives are 210mm rather than 160mm is to cover the extra 50mm of space the illuminator provides.
What you need to look out for is the polarizer and analyzer. The best option has a rotatable polarizer with a separate quarter wave plate slider, mostly meant for epi DIC but good without too. Some models don't have a removable polarizer at all, others are frequently sold with it missing or with an ND filter in the slot instead.

zed
Posts: 72
Joined: Thu Feb 07, 2019 1:35 pm
Location: Houston, TX
Contact:

Re: Reflected Light - Optiphot Series

Post by zed »

@Scarodactyl - Thanks for the quick response! I had a go at assembling my beamsplitters into a 210mm path and it seems to be working well with the 70/30 I have! It is VERY nice that no additional optics were required. Thanks again!

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