Microscope Cameras?

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Dave S
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Re: Microscope Cameras?

#61 Post by Dave S » Tue Jun 18, 2019 7:04 pm

Your microscope is a bit more upmarket than mine Alan, hence the 30mm oculars.

It does seem the fireisto is on the right track, and aligns with other references.

I found this:

The adapter that can be used with the lens exchange type camera of the APS - C sensor is 2.5 times or more. It seems that the magnification of the relay lens that matches APS - C is 1.67x, but I have not seen a relay lens of 1.67x. Relay lens with 1.67x magnification may not exist.

I guess a compromise might have to be a 2.5x relay lens.

It seems that plenty of relays lenses are shown on e-bay, but all have to come from China.
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jfiresto
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Re: Microscope Cameras?

#62 Post by jfiresto » Tue Jun 18, 2019 7:12 pm

Dave S wrote:... If I focus on a specimen using the 10x objective, and the 10x oculars via the binocular head, then remove one of the oculars, and place it in the photo port, via the supplied adjustable extension tube, I can achieve perfect parfocal focus....
That shows that the photoport/extension tube is/are doing its/their job: projecting a focused, real intermediate image an unchanging distance up the tube. (Yessssss, we have parfocality!). The image is a short distance from the top, at just the right depth for the eyepiece which then shows you a portion of it.

You can get a feel for how far down into the tube the image sits, if you have an eyepiece that is largely open underneath (10X eyepieces tend to be). Create a thin vertical target that won't scratch a lens, for example, by clamping a cotton ear swab or a strip of paper into a clamp or vice. Then slowly lower the eyepiece down over the target until the tip comes into focus. That is where the intermediate image sits inside the eyepiece, and from that, you can measure off how far it sits below the top of the tube.

By hook or by crook, you want to project that intermediate image, directly or through a relay lens, onto the sensor of the camera. For yours, that would be another 44 mm into the camera from the lens flange.

A question: does the extension tube contain any optics?
-John

Scarodactyl
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Re: Microscope Cameras?

#63 Post by Scarodactyl » Tue Jun 18, 2019 7:38 pm

Typically a nikon 2.5x pl is a good 'universal' projection lens if you can get it placed right. It is not correcting (at least not for color) and projects an image big enough for full frame, and acceptable on crop frame. If you need correcting optics that is harder of course. There are a variety of olympus correcting projectives but who knows if any would be a good match. Once you have a projective put in there you just need the camera to be suspended above it the right distance, no more optics needed.
That said, there are also generic 2x dslr eyepiece adapters out there (sold by amscope among others) which have gotten very decent reviews. It should slot right in to that third eyepiece slot and produ e a parfocal image, though these are also not correcting.

Hobbyst46
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Re: Microscope Cameras?

#64 Post by Hobbyst46 » Tue Jun 18, 2019 7:45 pm

Dave S wrote:Your microscope is a bit more upmarket than mine Alan, hence the 30mm oculars.

It does seem the fireisto is on the right track, and aligns with other references.

I found this:

The adapter that can be used with the lens exchange type camera of the APS - C sensor is 2.5 times or more. It seems that the magnification of the relay lens that matches APS - C is 1.67x, but I have not seen a relay lens of 1.67x. Relay lens with 1.67x magnification may not exist.

I guess a compromise might have to be a 2.5x relay lens.

It seems that plenty of relays lenses are shown on e-bay, but all have to come from China.
The rareness and accordingly high price of 1.67X (and even 2.5X) relay lenses are well known with respect to other brand microscopes, Olympus for example.
I doubt that Bresser sells adapters for the mounting of a DSLR camera on a microscope, without at least notifying the customer about the additional optics he/she would need to complete the job. High quality brand name relay lenses are far from cheap. Hence, it is possible that they were thinking of other solutions, that include just the mechanical adapters (T2, 23mm tube etc), with/without the corrective lens below the photo port.

Another possibility is afocal, WITH a 10X eyepiece and a camera lens, but that would be a totally different arrangement so I believe that Bresser do not suggest it.

jfiresto
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Re: Microscope Cameras?

#65 Post by jfiresto » Tue Jun 18, 2019 8:10 pm

Dave S wrote:... I found this:

The adapter that can be used with the lens exchange type camera of the APS - C sensor is 2.5 times or more. It seems that the magnification of the relay lens that matches APS - C is 1.67x, but I have not seen a relay lens of 1.67x. Relay lens with 1.67x magnification may not exist.
The magnification will depend on the size of the original, intermediate image: 1.67X would nicely scale up an image that would originally match a "1 inch" video camera tube. The Wild phototubes I have checked appear to all project a "one inch" image for that size tube or semiconductor replacement. For anything else, a relay lens then magnifies and further projects it.
-John

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Re: Microscope Cameras?

#66 Post by geo_man » Tue Jun 18, 2019 8:51 pm

As Scarodactyl said, this type of adapter works pretty well for me. Smaller FOV than 10x eyepiece, but easy to use and good results in my opinion.

https://www.amazon.com/OMAX-Microscope- ... =8-2-fkmr0

I've posted a few images from my compound and stereo scopes using this type of adapter. Here is one example.

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7556

Good luck!

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Re: Microscope Cameras?

#67 Post by Dave S » Wed Jun 19, 2019 9:49 am

Well it does seem the 2x adapter, OMAX or AMscope, albeit probably one and the same item, is the only way to go now. AMscope £103, and OMAX £69 on Amazon. I did find the AMscope for £49 from a dealer called Cowtun in the US, but the price seems too good the be true, so it probably isn't.

Martin Microscope sell a 1.6x version, but that's 700 usd :shock:

I'll do a bit more web surfing before making a decision.

Still nothing back from Bresser (Germany) yet.
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Dave S
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Re: Microscope Cameras?

#68 Post by Dave S » Wed Jun 19, 2019 10:40 am

I have now heard back from Bresser, and they suggest this item. However, it is 10x, and as such suitable for a full frame sensor, and not the APS-C that I am using. I have asked if they can supply a 2x equivalent.

I'm not sure if the item they show, is just an eyepiece, and not an an inline unit with a 23mm female entry, and 23m male exit.

https://www.bresser.de/en/Microscopes-M ... WF10x.html
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Hobbyst46
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Re: Microscope Cameras?

#69 Post by Hobbyst46 » Wed Jun 19, 2019 10:51 am

Dave S wrote:I have now heard back from Bresser, and they suggest this item. However, it is 10x, and as such suitable for a full frame sensor, and not the APS-C that I am using. I have asked if they can supply a 2x equivalent.

I'm not sure if the item they show, is just an eyepiece, and not an an inline unit with a 23mm female entry, and 23m male exit.

https://www.bresser.de/en/Microscopes-M ... WF10x.html
10X eyepieces are often used in Afocal setups. Do Bresser suggest to use the 10X in series with the existing lens that now resides in the microscope head ?

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Re: Microscope Cameras?

#70 Post by Dave S » Wed Jun 19, 2019 11:01 am

Hobbyst46 wrote:
Dave S wrote:I have now heard back from Bresser, and they suggest this item. However, it is 10x, and as such suitable for a full frame sensor, and not the APS-C that I am using. I have asked if they can supply a 2x equivalent.

I'm not sure if the item they show, is just an eyepiece, and not an an inline unit with a 23mm female entry, and 23m male exit.

https://www.bresser.de/en/Microscopes-M ... WF10x.html
10X eyepieces are often used in Afocal setups. Do Bresser suggest to use the 10X in series with the existing lens that now resides in the microscope head ?
I'm not quite sure what they are actually suggesting, here is their reply:


The image plane is indeed optimised for C-Mount cameras. For a DSLR it is a bit difficult because the focal flange length is about 55mm for T2.
Which adapter do you have, the short one or the long one?

https://www.bresser.de/en/Microscopes-M ... apter.html
https://www.bresser.de/en/Microscopes-M ... -23mm.html

We recommend the long one (first link) combined with an eyepiece inside as a relay / photo lens to illuminate the big sensor properly. This works good with APS-C sensors. You would need this eyepiece to put it inside:
https://www.bresser.de/en/Microscopes-M ... WF10x.html
See the short manual attached on how it's done.
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Dave S
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Re: Microscope Cameras?

#71 Post by Dave S » Wed Jun 19, 2019 11:08 am

I forgot to download the pdf attachment.

Here's what they are suggesting, but it does seem to be a bit a a 'make do and mend' solution.
Bresser relay lens.gif
Bresser relay lens.gif (35.95 KiB) Viewed 11395 times
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jfiresto
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Re: Microscope Cameras?

#72 Post by jfiresto » Wed Jun 19, 2019 12:10 pm

I amused by step 2, where Bresser has you wrap electrical tape around the eyepiece.

If I were being mischievous, I might ask them: doesn't vinyl tape outgas? I have a used microscope head that came with fogged prisms, perhaps because someone had applied the wrong grease to eyepiece threads I had never seen greased before. The rest of the microscope was fine.
-John

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Re: Microscope Cameras?

#73 Post by Dave S » Wed Jun 19, 2019 12:16 pm

I posed another couple of questions to Bresser, and received a prompt reply, copied below.

I have say that their customer support is first class.

I experimented with their suggested solution, using one of the existing 10x oculars from the bino head, and holding it against the T2 mount, and it does work, albeit with a degree of magnification. Its not parfocal with the Bino head, but not not too far off. As I will be using 'live view' on the PC monitor, and controlling the camera from the PC, its doesn't matter too much if I have to slightly re-focus from the eyepiece view.

As such, I think I am going to go with the Bresser solution.

I would not try to get the full image circle on the APS-C sensor, as the correction for field curvature and color aberration gets worse to the edges of the field. So it makes sense to project only the center part. Otherwise you would need at least plan achromatic lenses which cost a lot more.
Also the higher "magnification" is helpful when you are working with a camera that has much bigger pixels than most of the dedicated MikroCam cameras have.
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Re: Microscope Cameras?

#74 Post by jfiresto » Wed Jun 19, 2019 12:34 pm

That is encouraging. Would looking through 15X eyepieces then match the camera's field of view?
-John

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Re: Microscope Cameras?

#75 Post by Dave S » Wed Jun 19, 2019 12:47 pm

I don't think so john, it would likely just introduce higher magnification.

The true mage to fully illuminate an APS-C sensor is 1.6x, but 2x would likely be close enough, but according to Bresser not advisable with Achromatic objectives,
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Re: Microscope Cameras?

#76 Post by Hobbyst46 » Wed Jun 19, 2019 1:00 pm

Dave S wrote:I posed another couple of questions to Bresser, and received a prompt reply, copied below.

I have say that their customer support is first class.

I experimented with their suggested solution, using one of the existing 10x oculars from the bino head, and holding it against the T2 mount, and it does work, albeit with a degree of magnification. Its not parfocal with the Bino head, but not not too far off. As I will be using 'live view' on the PC monitor, and controlling the camera from the PC, its doesn't matter too much if I have to slightly re-focus from the eyepiece view.

As such, I think I am going to go with the Bresser solution.

I would not try to get the full image circle on the APS-C sensor, as the correction for field curvature and color aberration gets worse to the edges of the field. So it makes sense to project only the center part. Otherwise you would need at least plan achromatic lenses which cost a lot more.
Also the higher "magnification" is helpful when you are working with a camera that has much bigger pixels than most of the dedicated MikroCam cameras have.
1. AFAIK, accurate parfocality between the bino tubes and photo tubes is very important. One can always achieve focus with the microscope, regardless of the eyepieces, but without parfocality, the expected tube length is not preserved. Hopefully it will remain a small issue for your setup.
2. Hopefully mounting a new DSLR on a new microscope by means of an insulation tape wrap will do the job.
3. The major feature of this microscope, as shown on the Bresser site, is supposed to be accurate and permanent parfocality (or so I understood from the description in their site). Possibly this holds well for Bresser USB cameras.

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Re: Microscope Cameras?

#77 Post by apochronaut » Wed Jun 19, 2019 1:22 pm

An element that is missing in this lengthy discussion is that the marked magnification on photo eyepieces is not absolute. Any photo eyepiece marked 2.5X, is only 2.5X when used in the trinocular tube it was designed for. Put it in another photo tube with a different optical tube length and it's magnification could be effectively double that marked.
Unless you know the actual tube length an eyepiece is designed to be used with, you are just guessing at the actual magnification it will provide and how it will project to any given camera and adapter set up and whether the image will suffer due to an over extended tube length. It is all trial and error, unless you know of an actual existing set up that works in such and such a way.
Examples; a Kyowa SP 2.5X eyepiece magnifies about the same as a Nikon CF Photo 5X in the same tube length set up. An Olympus NFK 5X LD 125 magnifies about twice that of the Kyowa and Nikon eyepieces but suffers from spherical aberration as the tube gets extended beyond 125mm.

Photo eyepieces also are designed with unique field flattening corrections specific to the objectives they are intended to be mated with. Sometimes these can be slight with other than intended objectives but sometimes the difference is too great to overlook. Again , only trial and error can determine the outcome in photographic quality.

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Re: Microscope Cameras?

#78 Post by jfiresto » Wed Jun 19, 2019 2:41 pm

Dave S wrote:I don't think so john, it would likely just introduce higher magnification.

The true mag. to fully illuminate an APS-C sensor is 1.6x, but 2x would likely be close enough, but according to Bresser not advisable with Achromatic objectives,
I may have misphrased my question. The idea is that your eyes use 15X eyepieces and the camera a 10X.
-John

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Re: Microscope Cameras?

#79 Post by Dave S » Wed Jun 19, 2019 3:04 pm

jfiresto wrote:
Dave S wrote:I don't think so john, it would likely just introduce higher magnification.

The true mag. to fully illuminate an APS-C sensor is 1.6x, but 2x would likely be close enough, but according to Bresser not advisable with Achromatic objectives,
I may have misphrased my question. The idea is that your eyes use 15X eyepieces and the camera a 10X.
Ah yes, see what you mean John.
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Re: Microscope Cameras?

#80 Post by Dave S » Wed Jun 19, 2019 3:12 pm

apochronaut wrote:An element that is missing in this lengthy discussion is that the marked magnification on photo eyepieces is not absolute. Any photo eyepiece marked 2.5X, is only 2.5X when used in the trinocular tube it was designed for. Put it in another photo tube with a different optical tube length and it's magnification could be effectively double that marked.
Unless you know the actual tube length an eyepiece is designed to be used with, you are just guessing at the actual magnification it will provide and how it will project to any given camera and adapter set up and whether the image will suffer due to an over extended tube length. It is all trial and error, unless you know of an actual existing set up that works in such and such a way.
Examples; a Kyowa SP 2.5X eyepiece magnifies about the same as a Nikon CF Photo 5X in the same tube length set up. An Olympus NFK 5X LD 125 magnifies about twice that of the Kyowa and Nikon eyepieces but suffers from spherical aberration as the tube gets extended beyond 125mm.

Photo eyepieces also are designed with unique field flattening corrections specific to the objectives they are intended to be mated with. Sometimes these can be slight with other than intended objectives but sometimes the difference is too great to overlook. Again , only trial and error can determine the outcome in photographic quality.
I can say that if i remove one of the 10x oculars from the bino head, and place it in the photo port, it is spot on parfocal with what is seen via the bino head. So it would seem that Bresser's ocular, as supplied with the microscope, are designed to work with this microscope. There is a corrective lens inside the photo tube to achieve this.

The 10x ocular that I have ordered from bresser, to use as a relay lens, is the same as the oculars supplied with the microscope.

A lengthy discussion yes, but but an informative, and constructive one, and exactly how forum discussions should be. I run a photography forum, and like to see that there is more to it, than just posting pictures.
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Re: Microscope Cameras?

#81 Post by apochronaut » Wed Jun 19, 2019 4:12 pm

Just as it should be but one of the problems with this forum is that all too often pictures, charts, links, formula etc. get posted without the poster having tried out the theory. I have done that too, so I try to be a little tighter on the practical. Just be wary of hard and fast rules about relay lens magnifications in photo tubes. They can be all over the place and not necessarily as marked, that was the only point I was making.
I'm sure your system advised by Bresser is a tested and well thought out one, otherwise they wouldn't have recommended it.

In the infinity corrected systems I use, a 10X eyepiece matched to the visual oculars, seems to work best with APS-C because as you say , any corrections are done in the telan lens in advance. With 160mm systems, it goes all over the place because I have made pictures through objectives from the 19th century all the way up to ones made just a few years ago. Corrections are all over the place, and sometimes even the tube length is not known, although it can usually be deduced. That's why I keep a pile of eyepieces around of various corrective capacities and magnifications. I can usually find one that is as close as one could possibly be to ideal.
Setting up a photo system from scratch where one is working with a lot of unknowns is largely trial and error. The rules that have and are being written are mostly vague.

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Re: Microscope Cameras?

#82 Post by Roldorf » Wed Jun 19, 2019 6:48 pm

Good information here. I got my T2 adapter today and guess what? I can't get focus on the camera. Even taking off the top mounting collar it's still just outside focus. I will talk to them tomorrow and see what they say. Plan Infinity Objectives. I also have a 10x eypiece extra.
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Re: Microscope Cameras?

#83 Post by Scarodactyl » Wed Jun 19, 2019 6:50 pm

apochronaut wrote:An element that is missing in this lengthy discussion is that the marked magnification on photo eyepieces is not absolute.
Yeah, just to reagree this is very important. I was just comparing a nikon projective on an olympus system and the nikon 2.5x was acting more like a 1.6x in that context. A lot of times you're going to have to live with a "good enough" solution--even some of the big four seem to have decided that "good enough" was good enough in some contexts. Just look at how Leica tends to 'officially' adapt dslrs to their trinocular stereo microscopes--it's a mess with gigantic stacks of adapters, and apparently the results don't tend to be ideal either.

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Re: Microscope Cameras?

#84 Post by Dave S » Wed Jun 19, 2019 7:42 pm

Roldorf wrote:Good information here. I got my T2 adapter today and guess what? I can't get focus on the camera. Even taking off the top mounting collar it's still just outside focus. I will talk to them tomorrow and see what they say. Plan Infinity Objectives. I also have a 10x eypiece extra.
No surprise there Alan ;) . As you have plan objectives, you should be able to closer to 1.6x mag factor, as you shouldn't be bothered by chromatic aberrations around the edge of the field of view. Albeit you will stuggle to get a 1.6x optic, with out mortgaging your house. A 2x would be a good compromise, but failing that, the 10x offers quite an acceptable solution IMO.

Freundiche Grose at Bresser, is very helpful. You can tell him I said that :)
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Re: Microscope Cameras?

#85 Post by Hobbyst46 » Wed Jun 19, 2019 8:01 pm

Dave S wrote:
Roldorf wrote:... A 2x would be a good compromise, but failing that, the 10x offers quite an acceptable solution IMO.
Are the 2X and the 10X supposed to do exactly the same function, and one of them does it better than the other, and both results are still acceptable ? that would be an unrealistic lattitude IMHO. Ignoring aberration correction altogether, a proper relay lens for good-coverage projection into the APSC sensor is 1.67X or 2.5X (focal setup). Perhaps the combination of 10X and a reducer lens that is now included in the head of the finite optics Bresser microscope yields about 2-3X total.

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Re: Microscope Cameras?

#86 Post by Dave S » Wed Jun 19, 2019 8:25 pm

You could be correct, placing the 10x ocular in the photo tube, a patfocal view with the 10x oculars in the Bino head is achieved. The shorter distance from the photo port and the objective, being compensated by the fixed lens in the photo tube.
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Re: Microscope Cameras?

#87 Post by Scarodactyl » Wed Jun 19, 2019 8:31 pm

Hobbyst46 wrote:
Dave S wrote:
Roldorf wrote:... A 2x would be a good compromise, but failing that, the 10x offers quite an acceptable solution IMO.
Are the 2X and the 10X supposed to do exactly the same function, and one of them does it better than the other, and both results are still acceptable ? that would be an unrealistic lattitude IMHO. Ignoring aberration correction altogether, a proper relay lens for good-coverage projection into the APSC sensor is 1.67X or 2.5X (focal setup). Perhaps the combination of 10X and a reducer lens that is now included in the head of the finite optics Bresser microscope yields about 2-3X total.
Presumably that's a 10x normal eyepiece in an afocal setup vs a 2x projective with no intervening optics, right? Or am I misreading that?
I've never tried the afocal setup. It seems very promising in some cases.

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Re: Microscope Cameras?

#88 Post by Dave S » Wed Jun 19, 2019 8:35 pm

That is possible I guess.
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Re: Microscope Cameras?

#89 Post by Roldorf » Wed Jun 19, 2019 8:43 pm

Got to go real heavy thunderstorm here constant lightning dont want my computer to get fried.
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Re: Microscope Cameras?

#90 Post by Dave S » Wed Jun 19, 2019 8:50 pm

We had the storms here last night, one local property took a lightning strike, and caught fire. Nobody hurt thankfully.
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