Cords for Olympus PM-10 / 20 / 30 system PM-PBS ?

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warrencat2015
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Cords for Olympus PM-10 / 20 / 30 system PM-PBS ?

Post by warrencat2015 »

Where can you buy/find cords for the Olympus PM-10 system? It says PM-PBS slot but all the systems on eBay do not have cords.

I am currently using a school microscope and they are lousy, I want to buy my own. I need something super cheap from eBay, old and vintage, something I can mount the photomicrography system on. Any ideas on what to look for?

I take pictures of minerals and crystals, sometimes a 4x is too large, A 2x would be better in my opinion. Any ideas?

I use photomicrography E4 film 12 iso for my exposures so I usually use a bright lamp. I need to buy a lot more, the exposure times are silly large like 25 min right now.

Scarodactyl
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Re: Cords for Olympus PM-10 / 20 / 30 system PM-PBS ?

Post by Scarodactyl »

Film photomicrography...I respect it but it seems like a world of hurt given thr particular challeges of microscopy. If you'll forgive me for asking, why film?

This one looks complete(?) https://www.ebay.com/itm/Olympus-Micros ... 5161531913

Also, when you say minerals and crystals do you mean 3d subjects rather than slides? If so the whole olympus bh2 ecosystem might not be the best, and you'd probably do better with an extreme macro style setup. But in that case using film and not being able to focus stack sounds very limiting.

warrencat2015
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Re: Cords for Olympus PM-10 / 20 / 30 system PM-PBS ?

Post by warrencat2015 »

I saw that system, but the controls are too limited for what I want to accomplish. I am mainly trying to get one of those big boxes that lets you manually input all the settings. I found an almost complete PM-10A system in two parts with a cable, but finding an adapter might be challenging.

In the past I have done digital macro and it is very tedious. I do have extension tubes for my canon fl but only a 19mm lens and I found it quite impossible to focus my wide lens beyond the smallest ring. I should probably get a 50mm or a telephoto, maybe bellows too they are quite affordable. Macro is okay but I learned that microscopic views of many of my minerals are more interesting than their macros.

Here are a few pictures I took using kodak 100 on my canon 19mm with the smallest extension tube.
33333 small3.jpg
33333 small4.jpg
33333 small5.jpg
Here are two good ones that I was able to pull off with a 1927 ansco memo 35mm camera with an eyepiece level stand I made out of steel and aluminum. Using the schools microscope sucks, and the exposure times are like 20-30min long. A lot didn't come out because of this or bad alignment with the eye piece. This is why I really want to upgrade to an Olympus system.
33333 small.jpg
33333 small2.jpg
33333 small6.jpg

rjlittlefield
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Re: Cords for Olympus PM-10 / 20 / 30 system PM-PBS ?

Post by rjlittlefield »

warrencat2015, welcome aboard!

I'm struggling to understand where you are and where you want to go.

I see in your profile that your stated interests are
photomicrography of crystals and minerals, film photography, 35mm color film home development ecn-2 modified recipe for extreme dye formation. Holography
So it seems that, for whatever reason, you have a particular fondness for film.

That's fine, but on the other hand the first thing in your list is "photomicrography of crystals and minerals", and these days by far the best way to do that is to go digital.

There are lots of examples of crystals and minerals in our image galleries. Scarodactyl, who wrote earlier in this thread, recently won a 2021 Nikon Small World award for one of his high mag crystal shots. Here in our forum he is well known for both technical skills and images like the one at viewtopic.php?f=17&t=42708 . Or if you'd like to look at a long thread from another member who specializes in minerals, then I suggest to start at http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... &start=195 for some representative images.

Without getting into the reasons why, let me just say bluntly that if you stick with film, you will never get anywhere near the quality of those images. You'll be stuck back where I started, over 50 years ago, processing film in my own wet darkroom and being frustrated by unavoidable tradeoffs between sharpness and depth-of-field.

We'll be happy to help you reach your goals, whatever those are. But it would help a lot to know the goals. Do you want to make excellent images of crystals and minerals, using the most appropriate technology to do that job? Or do you want to use film, and make the best images you can subject to that limitation?

--Rik

warrencat2015
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Re: Cords for Olympus PM-10 / 20 / 30 system PM-PBS ?

Post by warrencat2015 »

Thank you for you response Rik.

I have a lot of this photomicrography E4 film that I would like to run through an older Olympus system. I have digital but I have always preferred to use film.
2178f05bc562a541cd6a3bc9a2b48232.jpg
It looks like that. I have many rolls as well as two bulk cans of it. I process it in old E4 chemicals.

I acknowledge the difficulties. I could focus stack the scanned images like digital. Alternatively, I could make a laser slit curtain device and do focus stacking in camera. (studying in the photonic / optical field) I am doing color holography as an unrelated project, I could probably use the rgb white laser for that exposure device. Im not sure how microscopic holography works, but that also is a solution to the focusing depth problem.

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Re: Cords for Olympus PM-10 / 20 / 30 system PM-PBS ?

Post by Chris S. »

Warrencat2015,

If you haven’t already been to Alan Wood’s superb Website, take a look there for any appropriate manuals you might not have already. Reading Alan’s Olympus Photmicrographic System Camera Model PM-10-A manual helped me picture the system you’ve purchased and are trying to get working.

From the link above, page 4, perhaps the cord you’re looking for is model UYKK12, quoted under “Automatic exposure body with connecting cord UYKK12”. Unfortunately, in a quick look online, I don’t see any specimens of this cord for sale.

I suspect you could make your own such cord using testing and logic, incorporating standard terminals as appropriate for the ends of the cord. While I don't know the name of the terminal shown in the manual, there are likely members of this forum who do. Good macro images of these terminals, provided by you, might show much more than the manual does.

Or you could use your system without the Olympus Automatic Exposure Control Unit, which looks to me like a box that does things you can easily do yourself. The elements it permits the user to set are nothing magical, and you can likely do as well with empirical testing to make your own set of standard exposures for your film. Or if you want to get fancy, you could program your findings into an Arduino-based homebrew version of the Olympus control unit.
I use photomicrography E4 film 12 iso for my exposures so I usually use a bright lamp. I need to buy a lot more, the exposure times are silly large like 25 min right now.
At 25-minute exposures, I'm fairly sure you are way, way into your film's reciprocity failure zone. (Though I can't find a reciprocity failure chart for this emulsion.)

In case you're not familiar with reciprocity failure: We tend to think of photographic film emulsions as responding linearly to changes in shutter speed, aperture, and subject illumination. But in fact, this linearity exists only within a limited region of exposure times. Very quick exposures may not provide enough "wake-up" time for the chemical changes to occur in the emulsion, and long exposures may still be illuminating the film long after the film's chemicals have dramatically slowed their response to light. So very brief and very long exposures knock traditional thinking about film exposure out of whack. In real-life practice, this was mostly a problem with long exposures. While two-second vs. one-second shutter speeds might represent--as expected--a one exposure-value (EV) difference in film response, a 20-minute vs. 10-minute shutter speed might (unexpectedly?) represent only a miniscule difference in film response--perhaps 0.1 EV or 0.2 EV of difference, maybe less. (I'm making educated guesses for your film. In the film days, we had reciprocity compensation charts for each of our emulsions, and used them. As said, I don't see such a chart for your film. There does exist math to predict reciprocity, but it requires parameters that I can't find for your film. If you care to do so, you can create your own reciprocity compensation charts for your film based on experimentation--but it would be far better to add enough light to avoid reciprocity failure entirely.)

So as you've determined, you need a lot, lot more light. Not sure if I agree that you need "a lot more" bright lamps, vs. a much brighter lamp or a few much brighter lamps.

Ah, film!! I recall it well, like outhouses before indoor plumbing. ;) Given what you're undertaking, you are one tough hombre! :D My hat is off to you, brave sir.

Cheers,

--Chris S.

Scarodactyl
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Re: Cords for Olympus PM-10 / 20 / 30 system PM-PBS ?

Post by Scarodactyl »

Just as a general note, my understanding is Wild's mps system was considered the best setup to use of the film era. If you're going to go the film route it might make sense to source one of those. Anything that makes it easier will be a plus.

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Re: Cords for Olympus PM-10 / 20 / 30 system PM-PBS ?

Post by rjlittlefield »

warrencat2015 wrote:
Fri Nov 05, 2021 9:36 am
Im not sure how microscopic holography works, but that also is a solution to the focusing depth problem.
I'm not sure either, but from what I've read, I would be very surprised if the output images compete favorably with ordinary lensing for the applications that you describe. As I understand it, the phase images do not give total phase, but only mod 2*pi, and to get total phase, you have to run an unwrapping algorithm. Perhaps your subjects are simple enough for that to work well. But in general I am cautioned by "Extended focused image in microscopy by digital holography" by Pietro Ferraro et.al., currently reference 8 at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_h ... microscopy , which notes that "application of the technique to objects with diffuse surface or complicated structure would be difficult because of the phase-unwrapping." My personal experience with holographic reconstruction is only in ultrasound and RF, where the phase-wrapping issue can be addressed by wide-bandwidth illumination (pulses and chirps, basically). If you figure out how to do it well in the narrow bandwidth optical regime, I will be very interested to learn the details.

--Rik

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Re: Cords for Olympus PM-10 / 20 / 30 system PM-PBS ?

Post by Chris S. »

Scarodactyl wrote:
Sun Nov 07, 2021 11:19 pm
Just as a general note, my understanding is Wild's mps system was considered the best setup to use of the film era. If you're going to go the film route it might make sense to source one of those. Anything that makes it easier will be a plus.
Scarodactyl, I take your point, which has merit. Following a brief look at Wild's mps system, I see why you esteem it.

But this said, in the film days, calculating film exposure in one's head required learning only a small, finite set of simple informational elements. When I taught media production in the 1980s, I required students to learn this stuff until it was intuitive. Once intuitive, it was then easier for students to mentally determine exposure than to use the various aids available at the time. These aids were fallible, while intuitive learning tended to be less prone to error. I think the key difference--or at least the educational goal--was that an educated student knew what his/her photographic intent or vision was, and also knew how to set the camera to achieve that vision.

I see this dilemma today, in digital. If I'm making a landscape image with auto-exposure, how does the camera know if I want foreground objects depicted as dark silhouettes against a detail-exposed background, or if I want foreground objects exposed to display detail, with the background burnt out? Of course the camera can't know this level of my photographic intentions, so I prefer to shoot in manual and make these decisions without having to second-guess the camera's algorithms, which often work against me.

So even in today's digital world, I encourage photographic newcomers to learn the elements of exposure, to exercise their brains on predicting optimal exposure for their personal vision, and to set their camera manually to attain their personal vision. Then they should evaluate why or why not their predicted exposures worked or not. Letting a mere camera make decisions for a photographer results in hit-or-miss (frankly luck) images. Without intention, there is no art--though there may be the illusion of art, created by chance.

In this sort of scenario, I lean toward educating a film photographer to a point where he or she can make effective, subtle decisions without gimmicky aids, such as the Olympus gimmick or the Wild gimmick.

--Chris S.

warrencat2015
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Re: Cords for Olympus PM-10 / 20 / 30 system PM-PBS ?

Post by warrencat2015 »

Chris S. wrote:
Sun Nov 07, 2021 10:48 pm
If you care to do so, you can create your own reciprocity compensation charts for your film based on experimentation--but it would be far better to add enough light to avoid reciprocity failure entirely.
Thank you for your response!

This film is very weird because is an older slide film. Something about the photomicroscopic use of this film leads me to believe that maybe the reciprocity failure isn't as bad as astrophotography film? (of which I have a lot of bulk rolls I also got, its extremely slow like sub 1 iso stuff or either like ~400iso super high grain film). I do agree I need more light because I have been using a CFL desk lamp. I have a spare 300w bayonet projector bulb that is extremely bright but it gets extremely warm after ~10 sec operation. It might be safer to use a spare enlarger halogen instead.

Speaking of enlarger, this is a micro/macro ??? focal plane image that I directly printed on photo paper by putting a piece of melted glass from a fire into an enlarger cranked up to about 11x14, cropped to a 8x10 sheet of B&W paper. I really want to try this with color paper reversal. It only works with 1/2in or flatter transparent objects though, not really what Im aiming to do.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CRz8z1MIOzZ/
it wont even let me upload a 400x400 image so im just going to link it

warrencat2015
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Re: Cords for Olympus PM-10 / 20 / 30 system PM-PBS ?

Post by warrencat2015 »

rjlittlefield wrote:
Mon Nov 08, 2021 12:08 am
warrencat2015 wrote:
Fri Nov 05, 2021 9:36 am
Im not sure how microscopic holography works, but that also is a solution to the focusing depth problem.
digital holography
--Rik
I cannot find any easy references to traditional microscopic holography, but I mean with film plates. The reason I have no idea how to do this is because I would need to diverge the beam to cover the 5x7 plate, and then use a huge lens (Fresnel?) to converge the light down into a microscopic view. I dont really know if the reflections would still work the same way that they do in regular holography. It might require a transmission setup which I do not really want to do at all.

To be honest, its a long shot and im nowhere near the knowledge to calculate something like that myself, at least not right now. I do however know that there is no blurring from dof with holography, and a picture copy of many viewing angles can be made in focus far greater than "normally" possible.
Attachments
microscope holography.png

warrencat2015
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Re: Cords for Olympus PM-10 / 20 / 30 system PM-PBS ?

Post by warrencat2015 »

In this sort of scenario, I lean toward educating a film photographer to a point where he or she can make effective, subtle decisions without gimmicky aids, such as the Olympus gimmick or the Wild gimmick.

--Chris S.
Thank you for your response Chris! It is really great to hear about your thoughts on exposure calculation. Very wise. Personally for regular photographic use I have not used my light meter since the selenium froze up two winters ago. I automatically calculate my exposure and its something I would have never done if I didn't use film for a year. I stuck with an entire bulk loader of Panatomic X and since then I know how to meter most slow films for pictorial daylight. I shoot and develop all sorts of expired color and black and white films to where I know how to shoot just about anything on my Canon FTFL w. 19mm lens.

However, I quickly learned that regular exposure knowledge goes out the window with what im trying to do. It is really difficult to figure out the correct exposure with reflected light from such a "dim" light. It was mainly trial and error, educated guess until I got tired of waiting half an hour per exposure with my poor setup. It might be interesting to put my setup outdoors next summer with some mirrors to reflect the intense sunlight, then I might get daylight comparable exposure times. The main reason I used my f6 Ansco Memo 1927 camera with the microscope was because it's lens size is the same as the eyepiece and I could project the slides with the Ansco Memoscope.

Here is a post with my 1927 memo in the stand I made for it. Quite inventive but not entirely practical without high speed color film :)
https://www.instagram.com/p/CT01wUcI3Rj/

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Re: Cords for Olympus PM-10 / 20 / 30 system PM-PBS ?

Post by PeteM »

Another factor, with film that old, is that whatever sensitivity it once had will likely have changed in the decades since it was manufactured. It won't get any better with time.

We humans have a great fondness for "sunk costs" and the "endowment effect." However, whether it is the costs or the learning time that lie ahead, a move to digital imaging (as everyone has said) sooner than later will pay off.

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Re: Cords for Olympus PM-10 / 20 / 30 system PM-PBS ?

Post by rjlittlefield »

warrencat2015 wrote:
Thu Nov 11, 2021 8:20 am
I dont really know if the reflections would still work the same way that they do in regular holography.
I have not been through any formal analysis.

My intuition is that any lens in the system will alter phases, and the reconstruction process will have to un-do those alterations in order to produce an accurate reconstruction.

As for a start on how the digital approach works, I would begin at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_h ... microscopy . One relevant snippet of that article says
As DHM systems do not have an image forming lens, traditional optical aberrations do not apply to DHM. Optical aberrations are "corrected" by design of the reconstruction algorithm. A reconstruction algorithm that truly models the optical setup will not suffer from optical aberrations.
--Rik

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