MicrobeHunter.com Microscopy Forum

Re Charlie's questions: 2) sorry, not sure what you meant there. 3) Yes. Please see my post above. In high NA darkfield, you need oil, not water. 4) NA 1.1875. Assuming dry condenser can get to corrected of NA 0.95 (some Abbé max at NA 0.8 though). 0.95 / 0.8 (80%-90% brightfield rule for condenser ...

Regarding what immersion for condenser: In some cases, you need oil instead of water. For example, if you are doing darkfield or oblique with a condenser with maximum NA of 1.4 or above. If you are using an oil Abbé condenser with NA 1.25 for brightfield, then oil would not do much more than water o...

Charlie, I heard Leitz Plezy was designed for adapting 37mm parfocal objectives to 45mm parfocal objectives. Some did use Plezy to adapt LOMO WIs to DIN scope and considered it fine. Optically though, it is not an exact fit. I would guess (though I could be totally wrong) that tube length addition w...

Beautiful photos and educational as well!
John B, have you submitted manuscripts to microscopy journals? Please do, if you have not. Your posts deserve to be read and enjoyed more people.

Very beautiful, especially the first photo! Thank you, Seb.

Beautiful images!
Those were cut with a hand microtome? Wow!

Definitely try camera's auto WB first. I use that most of the time, sometimes it is off slightly, but most of the times it is fine. I only use LED though. The following is what a nearly transparent ciliate looks like (though the coleps could be slightly green - I did not look at it under brightfield...

Sorry, I don't have experience on that. You may need to isolate/replace one factor at a time, take a photo and compare. For example, remove all polarizers, if you could, take a photo. If your analyzer cannot be removed from scope head, then replace that head with a plain head from Nikon model S ($40...

Just in case some people mistakenly considered me a brand snob:

I am still using two Chinese scopes, one of which is an Amscope. So I have nothing against AmScope or any brand. I believe other factors, such as microscopist's knowledge and sample preparation, are as important as quality optics.

Charlie, Please do open a thread and I will follow you there. If you can kindly do so, please also share with us print out of that objective. I have Russian friends who can translate it. Like I said, I would be glad if I was wrong. I am having difficulties in making my brightfield WI versions to wor...

I open up the diaphragm and use the 100x dry sometimes. Uther than that I don't use it much because it rests so close to the specimen. Paul, Thinking on the bright side, if you are used to image quality obtained ^ that way, then your future AmScope dry 60x objective (when used dry) will make you VE...

Charlie G, Since eiman is interested in getting his 70x NA 1.23 WI to work in darkfield, I am guessing this discussion may also be of interest to him. If not, we can continue in private message. I think those Cyrillic letters "фA" on your 70x NA 1.23 means "dark phase" (or positive phase contrast, a...

While I can imagine how Kurt has been laughing and dancing in the past few days with his Zeiss DIC, I am still surprised that his happiness even infected his pet protists

Beautiful scopes. I enjoy your posts, Charles. Thank you for sharing.

Thank you, Phil. Sorry for my confusing wording. I actually only encouraged eiman to try LOMO darkfield and oblique separately, not in combination. I did realize, through my previous experiments, that such combination would not work. LOMO did offer a funnel stop for their 90x NA 1.25, if that matter...

eiman, So how do you scan a sample with such high magnification water immersion objectives? You can use 30x with K7x or even a none-compensating 5x eyepiece to get 150-210x. However, that still sounds a bit much for scanning, isn't it? If you have tons of patience and time, that may work though. Or ...

Charlie, I use fresh bottled water for those water immersion objectives. I am using LOMO water immersion objectives on my Nikon Labophot 2. I raised up the stage and condenser 12mm to focus on LOMOs, as there is no optical compromise for the objective that way. LOMO did not offer factory darkfield s...

One method to using oil is to set up a nose piece equipped with only oil objectives. Three of my Leitz stands have removable turrets. The turret slides in and out in seconds. I have several of them. They go for less than $50 if you are patient on E-bay. I have one equipped with low mag objectives. ...

No flame war necessary. I still have a dry 60x NA 0.85 and use it for quick visual scanning sometimes. Dry 60x will get you decent image. Excellent images even, if your subjects don't move, are cut razor thin and stained like John B's. Objective will have more heavy lifting to do with fast-moving lo...

Dale,
Ameobas would be killed by SEM's sample preparation process (chemical fixation/freezing, dehydration and metal-coating).

I like that the 20x video has more even lighting without blown-out highlights. Well done!

Paul, You will be VERY disappointed with image quality from dry 60x or oil 100x objective immersed/dipped into water. But you don't have to trust me, spend your money and you will find out. I suggest two solutions: 1) just get a dry 60x and use it dry. Image quality may not be top notch but cost is ...

It is amazing indeed. I am wondering why each species build a specific structure? Could it be that they have different building mechanisms that only function certain ways (and such mechanisms are genetically coded in species-specific manner)? I know one or two guys who bought a SEM just for ameobas....

I go by pixel count. High end limit is 1024 on either side. No low end limit. Windows Paint (free software) can resize pixel counts of your photos. If you save as jpeg within 1024 pixel count using Paint, your photo size should be fine. Edit: maximum photo size is 512 KB. Your video will be uploaded...

Yes, you got it, Charlie. Many amateur microscopists use that as golden standard of resolution for protists.

Thank you, Seb. I should mention that visual view of the original video showed more dust / oil particles and cleaning streaks. But my camera (at iso 200, F/2.8, 30, -2) could not capture those, which is a good thing :mrgreen: I was also surprised that I did not have to turn up output of my light sou...

eiman, I am highly interested in hearing your impressions on performance of LOMO water immersion objectives in darkfield and oblique. If you have a Klaus Kemp test diatom slide, you don't have to post photos, you can simply tell me whether or not your rig can resolve dots/lines on XYZ diatoms (espec...

^ In that case, you probably don't need to replace the polarizer, unless yours has been burned severely. A replacement may not provide better quality (dedicated microscope polarizers/analyzers are said to be the best for your application). Did you replace your Nikon polarizer with a camera polarizer...

My apologies. Now I remember that you mentioned it before in another thread. I did hesitate a bit, before I mentioned custom white balance, as it is obvious for an experienced photographer/microscopist like you. Did your polarizer/analyzer combo come from a microscope manufacturer such as Nikon? If ...

gekko,
Have you tried using custom white balance or kevin temperature option of your camera? You can adjust DIC first with a subject, then move to a blank part of your slide and tell camera "use this as white or grey".