MicrobeHunter.com Microscopy Forum

I have a slide in a set purchased out of england (I think also manufactured there) that is labeled: "eye entail sec" both on the slide and on the box index. I first thought it was a typo but maybe not. The specimen looks like a squished cross section. Extremely oval instead of round. Is this a micro...

I checked on youtube the other night and found this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAlWf8t_D4Y For a while I thought he might actually be using a slide from the same batch as mine. I can't imagine studying histology without youtube. It must have been tedious and expensive for all the books. F...

About a year ago I got a new Olympus microscope with DIC capability. I love it but... My old microscope a Zeiss Ultraphot had an Optivar which I quickly realized had spoiled me. An Optivar is another set of lenses between the objective and the eyepiece. In my case I had 12.5 power eyepieces and 10, ...

I purchased a set of Clay Adams histology slides off eBay. I particularly wanted the "injected lung" slide. Apparently the tissue is injected with a blood like substance before the slide is made making it easier to diferenchate air passages from blood. This slide is great, except...isn't their alway...

I figured it out, I think. According to an Olympus manual I found online for an IX81 my UAPO340 objective can be used with either a U-DICT or a U-DICTS slider. The difference they show is: U-DICT "The background interference color is continuously variable from gray sensitive color to purple sensitiv...

This is as good as it gets under DIC.

This may be as good as it ever was but it isn't what a modern insect whole mount looks like.

I took this to be the hole in the mounting medium where the specimen was.


https://www.flickr.com/photos/196001110 ... ed-public/

Sometimes you get the bear and sometimes the bear gets you. I am a BIG fan of old slides. Recently I saw an eBay listing for slides from a marine biologist's estate sale. (Note: I have NO quarrel with the seller, she/he listed exactly what she had and was clear she/he hadn't looked at them under a m...

"It lowers the prism" I don't have the U-DICTs. I have the "normal" U-dict. From the photos of the slider on the internet it seems that Olympus has removed the thick removable analyzer and replaced it with a thin filter. I assumed that this was to create room to move the prism up, not down. Can you ...

I think I figured it out thanks to the Olympus link below: https://www.olympus-lifescience.com/en/microscope-resource/primer/anatomy/infinityintro/ A curse on those who "simplify" things to make them understandable. I thought that a normal objective had ray paths that exited and formed a cone of lig...

I did some more experiments: With a 40x with a BFD of -19 I set up Kohlar illumination and stopped down the field iris and looked at the image circle on a frosted slide I substituted for the Nomariski prism till I got a small dot about 1/5th the FOV. If i moved the frosted slide from the bottom to t...

I am confused (which at my age I am beginning to get comfortable with). I thought that the idea of an infinity objective was that the rays exited the objective parallel and were then put in focus by the "tube lens". I thought that this was so that you could add accessories (distance) between the obj...

I was trying to use the instructions for the test slide version 2 with the version 1 slide. ( i didn't order what I intended to order) It works better when you read the label. Now that I know what I am suppose to be looking for,( and what it looks like when you get it right) my big take away is: It ...

I went back and think i did better. This is 100x oil FL PH NA 1.3 with a .9 dry condenser. I have a 1.2 oil condenser, but not phase and I got better results with the phase. https://www.flickr.com/photos/196001110@N02/52631727181/in/dateposted-public/ I think I am now seeing the Poroids but my test ...

"The 40x results look nice but the 100x looks like it is likely not performing as it should." I tend to agree. I need to learn more about how to judge what I should be seeing on the test slide at 100x. The 100x lens has an NA of 1.3 but I have a dry condenser with an NA of .9 so according to a formu...

I got my DiatomLab #2 test slide in and ran some tests. (I love the test slide) https://www.flickr.com/photos/196001110@N02/52629130686/in/dateposted-public/ Olympus UplanFl Ph Oil 100x vs Olympus UAPO340 water 40x I used the #5 diatom on the slide (hardest to resolve). In my opinion I can resolve a...

I have a D300s that I am using with an Olympus microscope set up for photography by Olympus. I am using a PE 2.5 eyepiece. The frustration is, I can't record what I can see on the live screen! I am using a remote cable release and the mirror up mode. When i put it in the mirror up mode, (from live v...

I am still getting used to my 40x water immersion objective. However the results are getting better. This is a video of Vortecilla I took today. This is DIC with a normal prism designed for a BFC of -19 and this objective is -25 so not ideal. https://www.flickr.com/photos/196001110@N02/52602123322/i...

"Your condenser prism is not even compatible." I understand that. However, what frustrates me with Olympus is the lack of data. My understanding is that different prisms, at a given power, in this case 40x, have different beam separations (ibiology Youtube explanation). This is based on the theoreti...

My lens does not have the "N". I thought that was the difference between a UIS and a UIS2? I have been thinking about this. If my lens has a BFD of -25mm and the U-DICT is set up for -19, won't I get the same optical performance if I space my objective down by 6mm? There are spacers on eBay for abou...

Got off my lazy.... and put my DSLR on the microscope. It shows the full field. I decided that as I had video capability, that was the best way to show the results. This is a -25 BFP objective (UAPO/340 40X water objective NA 1.15) with a U-DP40 bottom prism and a U-DICT top slider that is designed ...

These are full field of view taken with my cell phone. I tried to pick a subject that would demonstrate the banding. The banding is most pronounced when you use DIC to replicate dark field. I also did a shot with the -25 BFL (Uapo/340 water) lens with what I would call normal DIC. Enhanced 3d contra...

The prisms are U-DP-40 and U-DICT. The condenser is a BX-UCDB The condenser instructions show this as the correct configuration for a UPlan Fl 40x objective. (However, my microscope was configured in the late '90s and current production may be different.) My dry objective is a UPlan FL 40X Phase whi...

Report after a couple of days. One of the main questions was could I use an objective with a back focal plane of -25 with a slider (U-DICT) that was made for a -19? I would say yes. I took two photographs with exactly the same DIC slider settings. One with the UAPO 40x water and one with a UplanFL P...

https://www.flickr.com/photos/196001110@N02/52570422693/in/dateposted-public/ I got it! Thanks to everyone for the advice. It is 40x NA 1.15 APO. Even though it has a back focal distance that isn't supposed to be compatible with my non shift U-DICT slider it seems to work fine (as someone here alrea...

GREAT INFORMATION! I especially appreciate the photographic examples. The one with the dots gives me pause. My slider is the U-Dict, not the "s" however elsewhere on this site (what a great resource) someone that owns both says he can't tell the difference between the two with an objective that "req...

You guys got me looking at water objectives. I hate cleaning up oil and I like to be able to just sit down for 5 or ten minutes at a time. My main microscope has a 5 turret condenser with: ph2,ph3,DIC10, DIC40, and DIC100 prisms. If that wasn't the case I would probably look at 60 power objectives e...

I got my petrology slides in from an eBay purchase. I have a DIC microscope but wasn't sure that DIC would work for petrology slides that are normally used with crossed polarizers. They do! The following was taken by pulling out the DIC sliders and then pushing them in and twisting the DIC setting k...

Water objectives... This may be the last objective I ever buy (unless I find a steal at an estate sale or thrift store) so I want to get it right. Further I really don't have a problem that needs fixing. If I hadn't had a new lens in my right eye about 3 years ago all of this would be a moot point b...

misery loves company. I am coming from the other direction. I have a .9 condenser and am thinking about upgrading my 40x objective over the capability of the condenser. I am already using a 100x 1.3 objective with the .9 condenser. I found a formula on the Leitz site which show how to calculate the ...

I am really tempted by a water immersion objective. I assume those can be used to study pond water? I have gotten side tracked by a great set of histology slides I got cheap, but expect to get back to pond water soon. Thanks for the information on objective NA vs Condenser. Since i posted I found so...