Camera & adapter for Nikon E200 trinocular

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RCAguy
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Camera & adapter for Nikon E200 trinocular

Post by RCAguy »

Re the trinocular on the Nikon E200: The tall extension has a lens at the bottom, and an unidentified port at the top, measuring 41.5mm inside the bosses, and 44mm at its maximum inside diameter - not a camera body mount I recognize, so I presume an adapter is needed to whatever camera. https://bolioptics.com supplies adapters (expensive) mainly for C-mount "industrial" cameras, and Amazon has a few of those relatively cheap albeit new, Your thoughts\guidance will be much appreciated. [Images soon as I figure out how.]

Image

Image

rjlittlefield
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Re: Camera & adapter for Nikon E200 trinocular

Post by rjlittlefield »

There are two ways to display images in postings:

1. Use the [img] tag for images that are hosted on some other server, such as Flickr.

2. Use the "attachment" facility to upload images to this forum's own server. Instructions on that can be read at viewtopic.php?f=20&t=41917 .

I hope this helps with the images. I have no idea about the E200.

--Rik

Scarodactyl
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Re: Camera & adapter for Nikon E200 trinocular

Post by Scarodactyl »

With a nikon I would direct project onto aps-c. This may be more of a pain on the e200 since the default tube lens and objectives may have weaker coverage, but it isn't too difficult to get an older head with an ultrawide tube lens from the infinity optiphot subseries.
Otherwise there have been a few variants on the official Nikon hardware to connect cameras but it isn't too difficult and with a few more pictures it won't be hard to guide you through it.

RCAguy
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Location: Lehigh Valley PA

Re: Camera & adapter for Nikon E200 trinocular

Post by RCAguy »

Here are two images of my E200 trinocular for getting me to a choice of camera and its mount, which is my second issue.

PS using the Attachment instructions is iffy using an iPad or iPhone as at first the images were "too large." I had to email them to myself, limit their size, then I could post them here. Then I saw no indication they were attached, which explains why I posted them twice. I'll do better next time.
Attachments
image.jpeg
image.jpeg
image.jpeg
image.jpeg

Scarodactyl
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Re: Camera & adapter for Nikon E200 trinocular

Post by Scarodactyl »

That chimney on top is designed to accept 30mm photot eyepieces for slrs. If you want to use a fill frame camera a 2.5x pli eyepiece (30mm version) and a mechanical adapter to hokd your camera the right distance.
That said, I think the chimney is also held on by a dovetail, but the set screw must be on the opposite side. Could you check that? If so you might be able to remove the chimney entirely and mount an m43 or aps-c camera on top without any intermediate optics.

RCAguy
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Location: Lehigh Valley PA

Re: Camera & adapter for Nikon E200 trinocular

Post by RCAguy »

Thanks Scarodactyl. Yes, I attached the "chimney," so know how to remove it. But then what adaptor would I need from that circular dovetail to the camera? With the E200's infinity optics, does that adaptor need a lens? And who's a source? Many thanks.

For the good of the order, a good article on the various formats is at https://petapixel.com/2021/08/03/choosi ... um-format/

Scarodactyl
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Re: Camera & adapter for Nikon E200 trinocular

Post by Scarodactyl »

In an infinity scope the tube lens is at the bottom of the head, and above that point the light is no longer infinity focused. So 200mm above the bottom of threhead is the focused image.
I don't know thr dimensions of the dovetail that attaches the chimney, but if you get those it would be straightforward to either have an adapter 3d printed or made by rafcamera. Adapt to something like m42, get an inexpensive helicoid and maybe some spacers and an m42 adapter for your camera and it's good to go. Then you only need to get the spacing right so the camera is parfocal with the eyepieces.

RCAguy
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Re: Camera & adapter for Nikon E200 trinocular

Post by RCAguy »

Perfect. Borrowed 42mm\T extension tubes and an Olympus EP1 M4/3 body found an image at 80mm to the lens mount flange. A calibration slide grid covered only a small area, suggesting a straight-through solution might be better with a smaller sensor. (I haven't bought a camera yet, be it an "industrial" C-mount strictly for my Nikon E200 microscope, or a body permitting double duty for other photography\videography - I have assorted Nikkor F lenses).

However there's still the mystery of the 130mm Nikon chimney that mates with an E200 with 37.5mm circular dovetail, but nothing mountable on top except a ~42mm\T opening with five bosses inside, and with a lens at the bottom - is this intended for a larger sensor after a camera adapter on top?

Scarodactyl
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Re: Camera & adapter for Nikon E200 trinocular

Post by Scarodactyl »

They made a few photo eyepieces for it for different sensor sizes, ranging from a 1x (with only a 16mm image diagonal for 1" sensors) to a 2x and 2.5x for slrs and I think at least one higher mag one for larger formats. These knevitably crop the image, though on the e200 that might not be a problem depending on the fn of the objectives.
I am not sure why the adapter has a lens in it though. Maybe it pushes the image further up so old bulky polaroids or whatever wouldn't be too close to your head?
But to be clear, the image didn't cover m43 when directly projected onto the sensor without the chimney? That seems odd. It may be they added wrinkles to the design of this particular head.

RCAguy
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Re: Camera & adapter for Nikon E200 trinocular

Post by RCAguy »

RCAguy wrote:
Thu Aug 19, 2021 5:07 am
Perfect. Borrowed 42mm\T extension tubes and an Olympus EP1 M4/3 body found an image at 80mm to the lens mount flange. A calibration slide grid covered only a small area, suggesting a straight-through solution might be better with a smaller sensor.
It was member Mike Much’s 4/3 camera and expertise that led to this measurement, and he has adapters for me. Also Mike encouraged me to get a 4/3 camera, which arrived today. The smallness of the image may still be an issue, although the camera’s resolution is high.

Thanks to Mike et al for the help - I’ll post more later.

RCAguy
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Re: Camera & adapter for Nikon E200 trinocular

Post by RCAguy »

Scarodactyl wrote:
Thu Aug 19, 2021 9:20 am
They made a few photo eyepieces for it for different sensor sizes, ranging from a 1x (with only a 16mm image diagonal for 1" sensors) to a 2x and 2.5x for slrs and I think at least one higher mag one for larger formats. These knevitably crop the image, though on the e200 that might not be a problem depending on the fn of the objectives.
I am not sure why the adapter has a lens in it though. Maybe it pushes the image further up so old bulky polaroids or whatever wouldn't be too close to your head?
But to be clear, the image didn't cover m43 when directly projected onto the sensor without the chimney? That seems odd. It may be they added wrinkles to the design of this particular head.
I considered the 1in format, but wanted double duty from a new camera system investment - first for me in quite a while. Roaming the web I see the E300’s 130mm chimney and its bottom lens normally fitted to a C mount adapter, which was not included with the one I got, and shorter ones labeled “1x,” “0.35x,” “ 0.55x,” & “ 0.70x.”

Scarodactyl
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Re: Camera & adapter for Nikon E200 trinocular

Post by Scarodactyl »

I was looking around, and I have two of these attachments, one short (for 38mm adapters) and one long (for 30mm photo eyepieces), but neither has a lens in it so the one you have must be a third option.
For your M43 camera I would try it without the chimney entirely just to see how it does. It may be the lens at the bottom will help with field coverage by making the image smaller, or you may get a better image without any intermediate lens (since a 22mm diagonal sensor should be well matched to a 22mm fn head and objectives without any resizing). Either way should be pretty straightforward to adapt your camera on.

RCAguy
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Re: Camera & adapter for Nikon E200 trinocular

Post by RCAguy »

My chimney, at 130mm flange to top, appears taller than others I've seen, and has a lens at the bottom. Without the chimney, Mike Much found 80mm in T rings produced an image on a 4/3 camera, albeit smallish. With an adapter form him, later today I'll see what I get with my newly acquired 4/3 body.

Olympusman
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Re: Camera & adapter for Nikon E200 trinocular

Post by Olympusman »

Ihave been advising Robin for some time on microscopy issues. When I saw where this chimney thing was headed I called Robin and offered to bring over some extension tubes and a camera to see if we could determine the afocal parfocality tube length. I brought a set of Vivitar/Olympus OM mount auto-extension tubes, an OM to Micro Four Thirds adapter and an Olympus E-P1 camera. Having fabricated trinocular camera adapters before, I took an educated guess on a 25mm and a 36mm tube combination with the OM to Micro Four Thirds adapter and stood this combination on the photo port. Lucky try! Hit it at 8 cm.

Mike
Michael Reese Much FRMS EMS Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA

Scarodactyl
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Re: Camera & adapter for Nikon E200 trinocular

Post by Scarodactyl »

Nice, I am glad you got something worked out! These have the same dovetail as other Nikon infinity scopes, so if you ever want to go ultrawide it's an option but you may find you don't ever need to.

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