Advice about possible Bh2 purchase please

[billben74]

First of all apologies for being a bit help greedy at the moment....

Ok so I have in my sites an olympus bh2 with trinoc head with 100 watt halogen lamp house.
One of my main gripes with my current brunel/chinese scope is its 20 watt halogen which I feel lets me down with my favourite technique crossed polaroids.
I also like the idea of having a microscope which I could (if I somehow get a windfall) upgrade to DIC/ flourescence.

A confusing part of the spec for the scope is its quoted as having a set of plan infinity objectives. Based on the image the merchant has displayed they look like mine -> as in no brand chinese (but quite reasonable) infinity plan objectives . I may wrong here and I have asked the seller for the identity of the objectives but any answer will certainly have to wait, at least, till monday as they are a merchant.

I know that olympus Bh2 series did have some infinity objectives as I've seen them in catalogues from Alan wood's site but this just confuses me as I don't understand when you can swap infinity and 160TL objectives.

Anyone understand
a) how you can stick a set of infinity objectives on a BH2?
b) and if you did so how would this effect hooking up the trinoc to a canon 1200D?

as in does the NFK relay lens correct the olympus 160TL (or infinity) objectives?
So would you, therefore need a different photo relay system?

[einman]

I do not recall the BH2 EVER having infinity objectives. I looked through my BH2 brochures etc and can not find anywhere a mention of infinity objectives.

What catalog on Alan Woods site shows infinity objectives. I believe I have them all and can't find it.

I have found where merchants have substituted objectives onto a stand simply to sell it. I have seen infinity objectives from Riechert on BH2 stands etc.

[einman]

Here is a quote from Alan's website:

"AH-2 (Vanox) and BH-2 microscopes
The third range included the AH-2 (Vanox) research microscope (introduced 1983), BH-2 clinical microscope (introduced 1980) and CH-2 student microscope, which used objectives with a parfocal distance of 45 mm and a tube length of 160 mm

The infinity objectives did not appear until the BX line of Olympus scopes.

[PeteM]

Just to add, the BH-2 (from my experience of one) had 160mm tube "D-Plan" and even pricier "S-Plan" objectives. There's apparently some correction in the eyepieces as well, so you'd want to match that up as well.

If the stand is affordable, no reason you couldn't go with some other properly matching set of 160mm optics and use the BH-2's trinocular head with your Canon camera. One way to affordably insert a crossed polaroid filter into a BH-2 is to get an Olympus height riser (it has a compensating lens) and drop the filter into that. With just the trinocular head and the stand there isn't really enough room.

[hkv]

Billben74, you may find this post interesting:

http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... 422c258bb9

[einman]

Billben74, you may find this post interesting:

http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... 422c258bb9

I recall reading that forum. I believe the "infinity" objectives mentioned were for the mettalurgical scope which utilized reflectance and a different tube length. As mentioned that would be shown on the stand. There was no biological BH-2 that utilized infinity objectives.

So I guess I should have said no BH2 biological stands used infinity. The only metallurgical stand I have owned was a Meiji and I sold it almost as soon as I purchased it.

[carlh6902]

I think the Bhs-2 line did use infinity objectives when the right vertical illuminator is present in the optical path. The vertical illuminator contains the necessary tube lens. But for standard illumination, it uses 160mm lenses, with optical correction provided by matching oculars.

Carl

[Tom Jones]

Ask the merchant if he'll swap out the infinity objectives for a set of DPlans. Pick up the right NFK projection lens for the trinoc and you're on your way.
If he won't, and the price is nice enough, buy it, sell the infinity lenses for whatever you can get, and replace them with DPlans (or Splans if the budget allows).

The BHS you refer to (100 watt BH2), is a very nice stand and all the standard BH2 parts fit save for the 100w lamp setup.

Tom

[Crater Eddie]

^^^^ What he said!
The BH-2 is a sweet scope, and the DPLAN objectives are relatively inexpensive and pretty darned good. Being the 100W lamp version is icing on the cake.
CE

[billben74]

Wow. Lots of help. Thank you everyone.
einman -> I think you have it. The vertical illuminator altered the tube length.
This is similar to the topic hkv put in a link to where c-krebs explains that UMA unit also altered the tube length and can allow the use of UIS compatable objectives.
One can see the motivation for using infinity systems, especially with fully corrected objectives....

My understanding is that with DPLANS and an a NFK you still need the correct extention tube to fit a canon 1200D.
I have not seen these for pennies....

Anyway I will try to get to bottom of the identity of the objectives. The price of the unit would be good if it had a set of DPLANs.
I must admit I have never seen very cheap DPLANS (but many others here have much more experience than me) and I doubt I would get enough
selling generic plan infinities to cover the cost of them but until I talk to the merchant I lack some information.

[Tom Jones]

The only thing I can think of for a microscope that cost pennies are slides and cover slips . Everything else costs $$ . The good thing is, properly taken care of, a good microscope will last the rest of your life and then some.

You will need an extension/camera adapter tube with ANY camera mount.

You will also need to figure out which projection lens to use with whatever camera you have to maximize the usable image area on the sensor. For example, a full frame sensor needs an NFK 2.5x projection lens for around $100. Those can be used with the Canon 1200D's APS-C sensor, but there will be a pretty big crop factor. The most appropriate one for the APS-C cameras is the NFK 1.67x, a rare and pricey (think probably $500+) lens.

I use an NFK 3.3x, along with a U-PMTVC (or MTV-3) C-mount adapter (both 0.3x) with my Micro 4/3 Panasonic GH4 to give essentially a 1.0x final magnification, so it's the same as direct projection and fits the 4K video area of the sensor very nicely. You can't do direct projection on the BH-2/SZH (stereo) scopes due to the need for final corrections done by the eyepiece. If I'm using my BX infinity system, no final corrections are necessary as they're all done in the objective, so I use direct projection with the GH4 for the best effect. For my full frame 5DII I use a PE 2.5x (the infinity version of the NFK).

Tom

[wmodavis]

I have two BH2s (actually 3 if I count the one I bought for parts so I could get the second one up and running). One BH2 is a BHS model which has the 100 Watt illuminator. The second BH2 is a BHT model with a 20 Watt halogen lamp. The 3rd which has been robbed for parts is a BHTU model. One of them came with this black box that mounts between the objectives and the trinoc head & I hadn't a clue what it was but research led me to discover it was a vertical illuminator as .. mentioned. When installed it does alter the tube length and requires infinity lenses for which I have a mixed set of Olympus MDplan/MSplan series lenses The M stands for Metalurgical. I can remove the vertical illuminator and use my regular Dplan 160mm lenses. The vertical illuminator also has built into it a top polarizer (or more properly 'analyzer'). The whole setup is very modular and swappable and interchangeable so that either can be uses as a standard transmitted light scope with 160mm or reflected light scope with infinity. My whole venture into this microscope thing was aided greatly by knowledgeable guys here and reading a lot of Alan Woods stuff. Personally I do not believe you could go wrong with an Olympus BH2 series. And there are a ton of olympus lenses available on ebay which is where i got most of mine.

[Crater Eddie]

Not pennies, no, but I see DPLAN objectives go on EBay for $100 - $200 each sometimes. Looking this morning I see a 10x DPLAN for $99.
CE