Leitz Eyepiece Questions

Everything relating to microscopy hardware: Objectives, eyepieces, lamps and more.
Post Reply
Message
Author
Bryan
Posts: 101
Joined: Mon Sep 17, 2018 11:31 pm

Leitz Eyepiece Questions

#1 Post by Bryan » Mon Mar 04, 2019 6:58 pm

The more I look into Leitz eyepieces the more confused I get. I know there are many different designations for eyepieces depending on the use but my questions are fairly basic. I have a Leitz SM microscope from around 1957, it came with 10X and 6X paired eyepieces. These have the "B" designation to indicate that they are paired. I have every reason to believe they are original to the microscope. I am considering upgrading to a set of Periplan eyepieces, I have a few questions about them. First, will I see much difference, are they that much better than the standard ones that came with my scope?

Second, did Leitz stop using the "B" designation for paired eyepieces at some point? The reason I ask this is because I see a lot of Leitz eyepieces being sold as pairs that don't have the "B" designation, many of which appear to be newer than the ones I have. As I understand the pairing had something to do with matching the lenses as close as possible which may not be as necessary as lens manufacturing became more consistent.

This is my microscope setup that I posted about a while back: viewtopic.php?f=24&t=6453&hilit=leitz+SM#p57776

Another question I have is about reticle eyepieces. I have been looking at a recent post by billbillt regarding binocular collimation. viewtopic.php?f=5&t=7172&hilit=collimation I know my microscope sustained a hit when it was shipped. There was a dent in the binocular eyepiece tube that I was able to repair, but I would like to check it to make sure everything is still properly aligned. To do this I would need a 10X reticle eyepiece which seems to be kind of hard to find or quite expensive. Can I use any reticle eyepiece that will fit my microscope? Do I need to worry about tube length? I have seen reticle glass disks that are available, can they be inserted into an eyepiece? Does anyone have a source for inexpensive eyepieces?

It's not that I'm having problems with my microscope but if there is room for improvement I would like to explore my options. It's been years since I have used a quality microscope so I don't have anything good to compare this one to. I am having a great time with it so I could also just leave well enough alone.

One last question, I know Leitz made POL eyepieces, how are they different from what I have? I don't have a polarizing microscope but I do use polarizing lenses, one placed over the light source and one below where the binocular mounts to the microscope. Would POL eyepieces somehow improve the polarization? I guess the same can be asked about POL objectives.

MicroBob
Posts: 3154
Joined: Sun Dec 25, 2016 9:11 am
Location: Northern Germany

Re: Leitz Eyepiece Questions

#2 Post by MicroBob » Mon Mar 04, 2019 8:09 pm

Hi Bryan,

the "B" designation was dropped at some point when bino tubes increased in market share.
When looking for new components it is important to know that Leitz made acouple od system changes:

- 1. 37mm objectives, 170mm tube, eyepiece pickup point 18mm inside the tube
- 2. 45mm objectives, 170mm tube, eyepiece pickup point 18mm inside the tube, eyepiece name e.g. Periplan 10x
- 3. 45mm objectives, 160mm tube, eyepiece pickup point 10mm inside the tube, eyepiece name e.g. Periplan 10x18
- 4. infinity optics

"Pol microscope" can mean two things:
- a microscope to pruduce stunning colourful images on little scientifical value
- a precision measuring device that offers an image as a by-product

For the first purpose you just take what works.
For the second purpose you use tension free optics and especially well centered mechanics. Components can be quite a somewhat more expensive, some times a lot.

Bob

Bryan
Posts: 101
Joined: Mon Sep 17, 2018 11:31 pm

Re: Leitz Eyepiece Questions

#3 Post by Bryan » Mon Mar 04, 2019 10:34 pm

Thanks for the information Bob. Based on the table below that came with my microscope it looks like I may benefit from Periplan eyepieces when I use my 100X Oil objective. My microscope has a 170mm tube length so I assume I should avoid the Periplan 10x18 eyepieces. If I'm reading my chart correctly the lower power objectives, 3.5X and 10X, are more efficient with the Huygens eyepieces. I assume what I have are Huygens eyepieces even though they don't have that designation written on them. My 45X objective will work fine with either type of eyepiece.

As far as the POL eyepieces and objectives go they probably won't give me much benefit since I'm just looking at the pretty colors. Many years ago I worked in a lab using a Polarizing microscope, at this point in my life I'm not interested in identifying minerals.
Attachments
Leitz Table of Magnification.pdf
(418.1 KiB) Downloaded 330 times

MicroBob
Posts: 3154
Joined: Sun Dec 25, 2016 9:11 am
Location: Northern Germany

Re: Leitz Eyepiece Questions

#4 Post by MicroBob » Tue Mar 05, 2019 10:51 am

Hi Bryan,
I think your assumptions are right.
Traditionaly without any calculation tricks the lower power objectives gave an image without much colour error and the higher power achromats and most apos needed a colour correction by the eyepieces. This still seems to be the case for your instrument.
Your minocular tube might have a tube factor above 1, you should check this.
For your 100:1 oil you should choose a combined magnification of eyepiece x tube factor x objective ratio of not much over 1000 x numeric aperture (n.a.). For the usual oil immersion 100:1 this would be 1250x or 1300x.

170mm tube length Leitz optics expected the image 18mm down the tube. This is much further than other microscope makers designed it. So it is necessary to stick with Leitz eyepieces designed for 170mm tube length. The newer ones will probably offer a wider field of view and a more comfortable view for you. Newer eyepieces are often a big improvement for an old microscope. If you pick the wrong eyepiece blue and yellow borders will occur at the border of the field of view when you look at very contrasty structures. In a normal slide the error will show in a lock of image quality in the outer areas, easily confused with curvature of field.

Bob

apochronaut
Posts: 6272
Joined: Fri May 15, 2015 12:15 am

Re: Leitz Eyepiece Questions

#5 Post by apochronaut » Tue Mar 05, 2019 3:16 pm

MicroBob wrote:Hi Bryan,



- 1. 37mm objectives, 170mm tube, eyepiece pickup point 18mm inside the tube
- 2. 45mm objectives, 170mm tube, eyepiece pickup point 18mm inside the tube, eyepiece name e.g. Periplan 10x
- 3. 45mm objectives, 160mm tube, eyepiece pickup point 10mm inside the tube, eyepiece name e.g. Periplan 10x18
- 4. infinity optics


Bob
Were there not also periplan eyepieces for the later 37mm optics? During the course of selecting eyepieces for my field microscope( all 37mm optics) I found an older set of 10X periplan that provide excellent corrections and a remarkably flat field to an 18mm f.o.v.
They look like this and are quite short, only 40mm or so.https://www.ebay.com/itm/Leitz-Periplan ... rk:20:pf:0

10x Leitz periplans like this, which are for the 170mm tube D.I.N. optics( 45mm) did not work with my objective set. Off axis, there was increasing ca which made about 1/2 the total diameter of the image, almost useless. They are much longer.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/LEITZ-WETZLAR- ... 0740b77518 .....I can't believe the length of that link!
There are also periplan eyepieces marked GF, which seem to be also for the 45mm parfocal optics.

Leitz infinity corrected objectives? I have only seen no cover slip Leitz infinity objectives. Can you point me in the direction of where I can find cover slip corrected versions?

MicroBob
Posts: 3154
Joined: Sun Dec 25, 2016 9:11 am
Location: Northern Germany

Re: Leitz Eyepiece Questions

#6 Post by MicroBob » Tue Mar 05, 2019 8:21 pm

apochronaut wrote:
MicroBob wrote: Were there not also periplan eyepieces for the later 37mm optics? During the course of selecting eyepieces for my field microscope( all 37mm optics) I found an older set of 10X periplan that provide excellent corrections and a remarkably flat field to an 18mm f.o.v.
They look like this and are quite short, only 40mm or so.https://www.ebay.com/itm/Leitz-Periplan ... 2756027953
10x Leitz periplans like this, which are for the 170mm tube D.I.N. optics( 45mm) did not work with my objective set. Off axis, there was increasing ca which made about 1/2 the total diameter of the image, almost useless. They are much longer.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/LEITZ-WETZLAR- ... 3399274198 .....I can't believe the length of that link!
There are also periplan eyepieces marked GF, which seem to be also for the 45mm parfocal optics.

Leitz infinity corrected objectives? I have only seen no cover slip Leitz infinity objectives. Can you point me in the direction of where I can find cover slip corrected versions?
Hi Phil,
I have a blind spot when it comes to early post war Leitz optics. The Periplan name was used for decades and the optics inside have changed a lot. The eyepiece in ebay article one looks very old. I use one that is small but has a bit bigger viewing les for a camera atattchment and it harmonizes well with Zeiss West optics so it is a correction eyepiece. For viewing I use newer Leitz eyepieces than the second one, usually from the late 160mm era. They are quite big and nice to use. Leitz first moved to 45mm and much later to DIN optics - not to be confused. At first they used 45-170-18, later they changed to DIN =Zeiss West dimensions 45-160-10. The 45mm Leitz objectives are more or less compatible with each other, the tubes and eyepieces not. I have no explanation for "GF", maybe it means "Großfeld" = big field.
Obviously I have a blind spot when it comes to late post war Leitz too! :lol: I think you are right, I had a short look on german ebay and found only no cover slip objectives. I never had a closer look at them because I have no need for them. From the look I would say they are newer than the 160mm objectives. Maybe this was from the period when they assembled the Leica conglomerate and concentrated on incident lighting with the Leitz brand.

What kind of eyepiece colour correction do the objectives for your field microscope project need? Zeiss West had a relatively high level of colour correction, so if you get colour fringes your objectives probably need less colour error correction. Olympus 160mm era eyepieces do correct, but only ca. 2/3 the amount.
The long ebay links can be truncated behind the ebay article number.

Bob

Bryan
Posts: 101
Joined: Mon Sep 17, 2018 11:31 pm

Re: Leitz Eyepiece Questions

#7 Post by Bryan » Fri Mar 08, 2019 4:57 am

Does anyone know what the “O” in the designation “10X O” means on this Periplan eyepiece?
6590A89D-C136-4F09-B75C-0CE65AA8C510.jpeg
6590A89D-C136-4F09-B75C-0CE65AA8C510.jpeg (85.47 KiB) Viewed 6007 times

apochronaut
Posts: 6272
Joined: Fri May 15, 2015 12:15 am

Re: Leitz Eyepiece Questions

#8 Post by apochronaut » Fri Mar 08, 2019 1:02 pm

I don't but those are the ones I eventually chose to use on the field scope I am building up. They have an 18mm f.o.v. and provide very good correction with older 37mm parfocal objectives, Leitz included. The set I am using them on is a bit disparate but those eyepieces work really well, even providing a fairly flat field with non-plan objectives. The set consists of a 10X .30 C.B.S.( Conrad Beck & Sons), 30X .55 C.B.S. , 62X no N.A. very old E.Leitz and an 80X .90 (dry) Hacker. They are all very parfocal and the only one not perfectly corrected for ca towards the periphery is the 10X.
I also tried two much physically longer Leitz 10X periplans, one of which also carried the o designation and they were terrible in the same application with lots of lateral ca with all objectives. I assume those eyepieces are for the 170mm tube D.I.N. optics or 45mm objectives.

Based on this, I would think that those short 10x periplans would not perform well with the 45mm optics but I have not tested them.

Bryan
Posts: 101
Joined: Mon Sep 17, 2018 11:31 pm

Re: Leitz Eyepiece Questions

#9 Post by Bryan » Fri Mar 08, 2019 4:33 pm

Thanks for the response apochronaut. I found a good deal on this pair of Periplan 10X O so I'll give them a try. They look like a newer version but also slightly longer than the one pictured above. I have seen much longer ones that I assume are the ones you were referring to. Hopefully these help with my 100x Oil objective.

Post Reply