Perfecting Labophot setup

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sikuri
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri Jun 04, 2021 11:56 am

Perfecting Labophot setup

Post by sikuri »

Hi, I'm new to this forum. I've just purchased a Nikon Labophot with three phase contrast objectives (E Plan DL 10x, 40x and 100x) and a bright field 4x objective. It also has a trinocular head with CF PL 2.5 photo relay lens and an adapter for my camera (Canon 5D Mk IV). I got this particular setup because I thought phase contrast would be useful for identifying polypores (a hobby of mine) and because it also came with fluorescence accessory (apart from the power source). However, the microscope was poorly packed and the Hg housing had broken into pieces during transport, so I'm not going to be using fluorescence any time soon.

The topic title is perhaps a little extravagant as my budget at this point isn't very high, but I'd like to use the little money I have wisely. I'm not happy with any of the objectives, and the 10x for example has a horrible amount of dust inside. I can spend approximately $500. I'm in Finland, so buying outside EU is costly. I think 10x and 40x objectives would be most useful for me, and I want to upgrade those first, but I'm not sure which to buy. I hope I can add all the fluorescence accessory later on, but I don't see many/any 10x or 40x fluor plans around. I've been advised (I also asked about this on the microbehunter.com forum) that the CF PL 2.5 isn't particularly good, so I'm looking into getting the PLI one which apparently should add less CA.

I'm a professional photographer and my aim is taking photographs that are good enough to sell. I'm not super experienced with microscopes and I have trouble telling what kind of quality I should be expecting from different objectives/setups. The bad image quality I'm getting may be partially caused by some crap within the system, but I haven't yet located it.

Any thoughts?

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

Re: Perfecting Labophot setup

Post by Pau »

sikuri, welcome to the forum!

I can't give you much advice on Labophots, so just few pointers,
- posting pictures of the equipment and sample pictures of your subjects could help others to give advice.
- E Plan are close to the bottom of the Nikon line-up, plan fluorites and plan apos are better, of course, but Plan in good condition also could improve IQ,
- I guess that you want to image the fungal spores, if you want to image the whole fungus surface phase contrast is not adequate. Even in the first case often bright field oblique illumination or dark field can be better. Phase only shines to produce contrast in transparent low contrast subjects.
- If you still have the fluorescence illuminator, the lamphouse optics and the cubes you could adapt LEDs as excitation source (no need of doing a so complex setup as mine http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... 37#p201937 , UV 365nm or 380nm would suffice in most autofluorescence cases or Calcofluor stained samples )
Pau

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

Re: Perfecting Labophot setup

Post by Scarodactyl »

I said it on microbehunter but I'll say it again here, you may find direct projection onto a camera sensor to be significantly better than using a projective eyepiece, even the better pli one. That said nikon didn't make it easier on their older heads, so it's not as straightforward as it could be.

sikuri
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri Jun 04, 2021 11:56 am

Re: Perfecting Labophot setup

Post by sikuri »

Pau wrote:
Fri Dec 03, 2021 11:23 am
- I guess that you want to image the fungal spores, if you want to image the whole fungus surface phase contrast is not adequate. Even in the first case often bright field oblique illumination or dark field can be better. Phase only shines to produce contrast in transparent low contrast subjects.
Phase contrast isn't very useful for the spores because the halo makes measuring harder. But it can be useful for seeing the mycelial structures and possible clamp connections.
Pau wrote:
Fri Dec 03, 2021 11:23 am
- If you still have the fluorescence illuminator, the lamphouse optics and the cubes you could adapt LEDs as excitation source (no need of doing a so complex setup as mine http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... 37#p201937 , UV 365nm or 380nm would suffice in most autofluorescence cases or Calcofluor stained samples )
Interesting! At this point I'm not even sure what equipment I would still need. I'll take some photos of and with the setup a bit later.

sikuri
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri Jun 04, 2021 11:56 am

Re: Perfecting Labophot setup

Post by sikuri »

Scarodactyl wrote:
Fri Dec 03, 2021 5:50 pm
I said it on microbehunter but I'll say it again here, you may find direct projection onto a camera sensor to be significantly better than using a projective eyepiece, even the better pli one. That said nikon didn't make it easier on their older heads, so it's not as straightforward as it could be.
Yeah, I'm not sure if that'd be convenient at this point. I already bought an adapter for my full-frame camera, and I don't want to buy another camera just for microscopy. If I've understood correctly, I'd need an aps-c camera. And all the adapters I see on Ebay use an eyepiece.

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