MicrobeHunter.com Microscopy Forum

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B06 ... UTF8&psc=1

Found it! Most others are not tall enough (and reported inside measurements are incorrect).

Good point about the silica gel, which brings me to a related question. I have seen advice concerning shipping, rather than storing, microscopes of removing the head and wrapping it in cling film (I guess to minimise dust and debris collection) before protecting with some form of padding. Is that va...

Hi Charlie, My home base is being let for the year (the whole family is moving with me) and personal items are moved into storage by a removal company. I am contemplating buying a Lomo while away. It’s light enough and I could convert it to, poor man, DIC further down the line. I am afraid my wine d...

After a long search, I could not find any reasonably-priced camera travel case that would fit the Labophot. I am going to try this heavy duty case https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B06 ... SN51&psc=1

lined with abundant foam padding.

. Not sure if your microscope would fit in this, but if it did, it would be well protected. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/133729711393?hash=item1f22e97521:g:R78AAOSwwchgeQ32 Thanks! I had not thought about it and it’s a brilliant idea, since it solves the issue of padding the case too. I just need to ...

Hi, I am going away on sabbatical and have to put my beloved Labophot into storage. Does anybody know where to source a not too expensive, appropriate wooden box in the UK? These https://www.rajapack.co.uk/cardboard-boxes/export-boxes/foldable-plywood-export-boxes_PDT00360.html have a good quality/p...

Not DIC or oblique just regular brightfield darkfield and one clip with phase contrast. Remarkable! I have a Nikon Labophot 2 with CFN objectives, but protists appear somewhat monochrome (at least the details: “eyes”, etc) unless I use oblique illumination or similar tricks. I’d like to understand ...

Beautiful!

Am I right that most of it uses DIC? I am asking since you do not mention it in the ‘about’ section of your youtube channel.

TIA

Hi,

which country are you in? I have four. How many would you need?

Kind regards,
Giulio

Wow, that was a tour de force! Thank you so much! I could never have figured out all that just by reading on or offline and, as you noted, some of the articles on the issue have, understandably, got a bit of an advertising bias.

Thank you both.

To summarise the distinction is mainly fluorite/apochromatic/plan achro(?) (compensating) vs run-of-the-mill achromatic (correcting). But even the latter benefit from compensating eyepieces if their magnification is higher than 40x. Am I close?

My experience is that the SPlan and CFN objectives will be similarly priced over the long haul. Pete, I just wanted to thank you for that. It was not my experience on Ebay UK where CFs are as rare as hen teeth and ridiculously expensive. Your remark prompted me to try Ebay.it where there are plenty...

Note that the field stop shows a yellow diffraction band, the hallmark of fine compensating optics. Don't let the advertising of the pushy companies fool you. ALL microscope optical systems are compensated. Some claim in the objective, some claim elsewhere. It doesn't actually matter where, as long...

Can you really tell if a tardigrade is dead rather than in cryptobiosis?

Wow, the depth of knowledge on this forum never ceases to amaze me!

I think you mean the width of the central slot in the stage. I measure 21mm with a caliper.

Many thanks,
Giulio

Amazing images. Thanks!

I am trying to improve my photographic technique and have kind of hit a wall. There are two main difficulties when taking pictures of protozoa: 1. They move 2. Their thickness often exceeds the available depth of field. One can deal with 1. using a combination of high shutter speed, which requires h...

This was a very pleasant by-product of having a pond water jar. The jar provided a long lasting supply of mosquito larvae, rotifers, stentors, vorticellas and all kinds of ciliates. Yesterday, we noticed three big guys which we identified as newt larvae (approx. 3cm long, with visible gills and legs...

Thanks Michael. I appreciated the bonus!

To be fair, the condenser is ok for df with a 40x,0.65. 40x,0.7 is definitely marginal.

I am quite happy with the condenser but I’d rate it marginal for DF at 40x. I am planning to experiment with a home made DF filter for 40x.

Thanks! I really appreciate all the info. It is not always obvious were to look for this kind of knowledge. For the record, I have a Nikon Phase Contrast-2 1.25 condenser which allows me to easily switch between BF, DF and phase, hence the advantage of having both BF and phase objectives on the same...

With a view to buying objectives that are DIC-ready, it seems that Olympus Splans are much more common, and way cheaper, than Nikon CFNs. Having bought pristine Splan 10X, 20X and 40X for less than the cost of a single CFN I am starting to think that it may be easier/cheaper to get matching WHK10X a...

Thank you both. Indeed I dream of adding DIC at some point. So that seals it. I do have phase contrast 10x and 40x E acrhro. The convenience woulad have come from having 4x, 10x Ph plan, 20x and 40x plan and 40 Ph on the same nosepiece. I could ditch the 4x and have 10x Ph, 40x Ph and 10x, 20x and 4...

I am in the market for a Nikon CFN 10x achro plan. I can choose between the normal and phase version. The phase version would kill two birds with one stone, but I would not be willing to sacrifice image quality in brightfield given my only occasional use of phase contrast. Is there a free lunch? Man...

I found that following the youtube video linked in his post here. So I do think it is him. He sells that and well done sets of oblique filters with filter holder for various popular research microscopes. If only he was in Europe. Postage from the US does add up.

A banana peel in a small jar filled with tap water has always worked for me. I have tried three times and never been successful. I get lots of small ciliates (visible at 400x magnification) after three days or so, but they never grow to a satisfactory size and after a week they are mostly gone. Wha...

What does the lower bound in that formula imply for micrography? Let’s say 2.5x relay lens and full frame camera and plan 40x,0.65 objective: .65 x 500 = 325 >> 100 = 40 x 2.5. Does it mean that some detail that could be resolved is not? But is it present and can it be resolved just by magnifying th...

Many thanks Apo and Pete! How important is (near) full CA correction when it comes to phase contrast? I am asking because I already have a 40x plan and a 40X phase-contrast DL E Achromat. I love the plan one but am a rather underwhelmed by the phase contrast one (it's a bit soft). I wonder whether i...

Hi, can somebody comment on the quality and suitability for non-fluorescence use of the following lens? Nikon Objective Fluor 40x Ph3 DL 0.85 160/0.11-0.23 I am confused on whether Fluor stands for fluorite, as in better corrected for CA distortion, or for fluorescence use or both. I could not gathe...