Olympus Short Barrel Plan Apo's on a Nikon L-ke

Everything relating to microscopy hardware: Objectives, eyepieces, lamps and more.
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stitchy.mitch
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Olympus Short Barrel Plan Apo's on a Nikon L-ke

#1 Post by stitchy.mitch » Tue Mar 31, 2020 8:33 pm

I am curious if these objectives are interchangeable. I am are that short barrels on older microscopes nearly always require compensating oculars. It seem that 'HKW' is required for my nikon objectives, and online queries of olympus oculars seem to be labelled 'WHK'. I ordered a 160mm tube length plan apo 4x and plan apo 10x at reasonably good prices and I am wondering if these objectives will perform well on my Nikon L-ke.

I suppose if not, they'll eventually end up on an Olympus stand.

Thank you all for your time and help,

~Mitchell

Scarodactyl
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Re: Olympus Short Barrel Plan Apo's on a Nikon L-ke

#2 Post by Scarodactyl » Tue Mar 31, 2020 8:43 pm

I am pretty sure Olympus WHK eyepieces are for the BH2 long objectives (they're the later higher-eyepoint variant on the WK). They are compensating but IIRC the compensations aren't the same as the earlier short barrel objectives (at least they require different photo eyepieces).

Hobbyst46
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Re: Olympus Short Barrel Plan Apo's on a Nikon L-ke

#3 Post by Hobbyst46 » Tue Mar 31, 2020 10:39 pm

Scarodactyl wrote:
Tue Mar 31, 2020 8:43 pm
I am pretty sure Olympus WHK eyepieces are for the BH2 long objectives (they're the later higher-eyepoint variant on the WK). They are compensating but IIRC the compensations aren't the same as the earlier short barrel objectives (at least they require different photo eyepieces).
FWIW, a long time ago I tried to use a short barrel (about 36mm parfocality distance) Olympus Planapo with Olympus WF10X eyepieces on my spare Zeiss stand. I used a 9mm spacer to lower the front lens of the objective by that amount, since the Zeiss takes only 45mm parfocality objectives (D.I.N.). Visually it was acceptable. I do not know how it will serve for afocal photography, though. If coronavirus limitations allow, I will double check on that, and try to check with my WHK10X as well.

stitchy.mitch
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Re: Olympus Short Barrel Plan Apo's on a Nikon L-ke

#4 Post by stitchy.mitch » Sat Apr 04, 2020 9:06 pm

Thank you very much for taking the time to check on that.

Hobbyst46
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Re: Olympus Short Barrel Plan Apo's on a Nikon L-ke

#5 Post by Hobbyst46 » Sun Apr 05, 2020 10:08 am

stitchy.mitch wrote:
Sat Apr 04, 2020 9:06 pm
Thank you very much for taking the time to check on that.
I checked as much as I could. On a binocular Zeiss GFL stand, I visually tested a short-barrel Olympus PlanApo 10X/0.32 objective, which has a parfocality length of about 36mm. The stand accepts 45mm objectives, so I connected the objective to the nosepiece turret through a 9mm RMS-thread adapter-spacer. I checked it with Olympus eyepieces: a pair of WF10x (I think they are 10X18) and a pair of WHK 10X20 L. The illuminator was improvised: a LED flash-light stuck into the base of the microscope. Could not take photos.
The slides were (1) a stained mouse cell tissue; (2) radiolaria.
Visual inspection showed that both eyepieces worked OK. The WHK gave a slightly wider field of view.
Hope this helps.

deBult
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Re: Olympus Short Barrel Plan Apo's on a Nikon L-ke

#6 Post by deBult » Sun Apr 05, 2020 1:55 pm

Olympus Long Barrel require WK OR WHK eyepieces for correcting lateral chromatic aberration. Field nr 20 mm.

Short barrel objectives require the WF or the H.E.P. WF series of eyepieces. FN 18 mm.

Best, deBult

stitchy.mitch
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Joined: Sat Feb 23, 2019 1:01 pm

Re: Olympus Short Barrel Plan Apo's on a Nikon L-ke

#7 Post by stitchy.mitch » Mon Apr 06, 2020 12:09 am

Hm. Thank you again to everyone who replied.

The objectives arrived today, they are the short-barrel 160mm tube length plan apos. I put them on the Nikon L-ke, and the field of view definitely had trouble with focus, and looking through my Nikon H.K.W 10x produced significant strain to the eye.

I suppose I should look for some of these Olympus eyepieces mentioned above, or pick up an Olympus scope. Thanks again everyone.

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