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[Rudix]

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[75RR]

Hi Rudix, welcome.

Do post images of your microscope in the My microscope section when it arrives.

[Rudix]

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[btschumy]

Hi Rudi,

I was in your position a few months ago. I had just gotten back into the hobby after a long hiatus.

What scope did you order? I was fortunate to still have a nice Leitz scope I got about 10 year ago.

[Rudix]

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[JimT]

Welcome. This is a great site to learn and share experiences.

You may be surprised with the Amscope's capabilities. I have one also with a Canon adopter and have not been disappointed. Once you have had it a while you can get some upgrades to further improve its performance.

As someone once said, it is the microscopist as much as the microscope.

[btschumy]

No need to sound apologetic. That should be a very nice scope to get you going. Be sure to let us know how it goes after you get it.

[Rudix]

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[Rudix]

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[zzffnn]

Many of the microscopes came with cameras but since I have quite a collection of Canon DSLRs I opted to go the DSLR route hoping for better quality and the (important to me) ability to take images in RAW format.

This is the best way to go ( better than USB cameras). Welcome to the forum, Rudi!

[Crater Eddie]

Welcome to the forum! Sounds like you are off to a good start.
CE

[Rudix]

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[Rudix]

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[zzffnn]

Your MPE image looks nice. I heard though, at above 4x, microscope objective adapted onto bellows will outperform MPE.

[Rudix]

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[zzffnn]

People put iris behind microscope objective all the time, it just takes a little more tinkering. Ask at photomacrography.net and you will get the same answer. If you calculate the effective NA, you will understand. There are objectives between $10-$3000 to choose from

[Rudix]

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[zzffnn]

That is why many use MPE portably, and objective on bellow in a studio setting You probably already know this, Mitutoyo apo objectives are the go-to lenses for studio macro, with frozen/glued cleaned dead subjects

[JimT]

Rudix , looks like you will be bringing some good knowledge to the forum regarding micro photography. Your Macro technique is impressive. Looks like you and zzffnn will have much to share.

Must be hell to have to wait for the scope. Then you have to set it up and debug it. BTW the 20X eyepieces are useless. Not even heavy enough for a paper weight

JimT

[Rudix]

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[Rudix]

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[zzffnn]

I agree, Rudi. I would go MPE for field or microscope for studio (and nothing in between) too.

Have you ever tried stacking by extracting frames from 4k video? Steve Beats did such one on radiolaria and results look very nice.

There are people, at the studio macro forum of photomacrography. net, that go up to 200x or more on their very elaborate bellow rig.

Indeed I had difficulties with 200x reflected light and a working distance of 3mm. That is where specially designed objectives, such as that huge and expensive Mitu comes in with >=10mm WD. At the very least, a extra long working distance (ELWD) Nikon MPlan 20x objective is needed. But then, I realized that I don't have that many interesting subjects at 200x, except for butteryfly wings and loose radiolaria/diatom/sand/pollens.

In the end, I decided to just use my microscope and 10x objective (with 10x-15x eyepiece magnification for 100x-150x total mag).

[Rudix]

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[zzffnn]

You will be amazed how much you can crop a 50MP image!

This was a stack done by extracting frames from a 4k video captured on 42MP Sony A7RII. Crop quite well indeed, considering it came from video:

http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... rian+video

[Rudix]

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[Johann]

Hi Rudi, welcome to the forum.

Where in SA are you based? I'm in Northcliff Johannesburg.

I started off in exactly the same position as you last year this time I started with an Omax scope - and as far as B/F are concerned they are pretty decent, specially considering the price.

You can get things like glass slides, cover slips, micro pipettes, petri dishes etc. from CCImmelmann (if you are in jhb area):
Tel: 011 680 5670
Fax: 011 680 9755
Cell: 076 905 1467
Email: charles@ccimelmann.co.za
Web: www.ccimelmann.co.za

Shout if you have any questions - happy to help where I can. But you are in the right place at this forum - best people and info on the web

[Rudix]

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[75RR]

Don't know how much you are planing on spending on your "cheap and cheerful first microscope" but if it is over the $500 - $600 mark you may want to pause and think about getting a used microscope from a forum member.
Much better value for your money and better quality too.
Arm yourself with a little patience and post a request in the Buy & Sell section.

[Rudix]

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[zzffnn]

Rudi,

That AmScope Infinity scope may cost you quite a bit to upgrade.

See this forum section: viewforum.php?f=16

Member Oktagon has a 160mm Zeiss WL that is easy to upgrade. He can custom build it for you too.

Member einman has a B&L Dynazoom, though I am not familiar with that model to say how easy it is to.upgrade it.

I have an incomplete Nikon Labophot 2 for sale, but it is missing stage, head and maybe(or maybe not) a condenser mount. Because I am upgrading to a new part and need to reuse some existing parts. I can include an oil immersion darkfield condenser, if you buy my scope, but my objectives are short ones (non-DIN) and not plan. If you are not good at DIY or don't have lots of patience to hunt for/adapt parts, my Labophot 2 is not a fit for you (The Zeiss WL and B&L Dynazoom may serve you much better).