Help with buying a microscope for photography

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karhukainen
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Help with buying a microscope for photography

#1 Post by karhukainen » Tue Jun 01, 2021 9:28 am

I currently have two microscopes but neither works that well for photography. I'm looking for something that's good enough quality for taking professional photographs. I photograph for a nature magazine and also work as a visual artist. Now, I can get around quality issues when I use the microscopes for artwork, but if I were to offer microscopic images to the nature magazine they'd need to be pretty good quality. I mostly shoot zooplankton.

I was originally thinking about getting yet another used microscope but Instagram ( :lol: ) has gotten me interested in the Motic BA310 series. My budget is between 500-2000 euros. I'm willing to spend the 2000 if I can get something significantly better with it.

I also found a cheap (at least I think the final bid won't be too high, maybe 450 €) second hand microscope in an auction that closes in a few days. Maybe someone could tell me their opinion of this microscope and the objectives? It's a Leitz Laborlux S with trinocular head and a photo tube that comes with an adaptor suitable for my current camera. Some other equipment, such as dark field filters, are included. The objectives are:

Olympus Dplan 4 160/0.17
Leitz NPL fluotar 160 10/0.30
Leitz fluotar 160 25/0.55
Leitz 160 EF 40/0.65
Leitz 160 plan 100/1.25 OIL
Leitz 170 20x 0.35
Leitz 170/100/1.25 oil
Leitz 170 PL 10 /0.25

Should both the 160 and 170 objectives work or will I get into problems with photography? There wasn't a whole lot of information, so it'd be a bit of a gamble maybe, but the seller's saying everything works.

I would like to be able to experiment with different kind of illuminating techniques, and I've seen some really cool (stacked) images of insects that were created with the Motic BA310. However, I haven't been able to find exact lists of setups that were used, so I'm not really sure what exactly I would need to buy and how much it would really cost.

Any thoughts?
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75RR
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Re: Help with buying a microscope for photography

#2 Post by 75RR » Tue Jun 01, 2021 10:21 am

karhukainen wrote:
Tue Jun 01, 2021 9:28 am
I currently have two microscopes but neither works that well for photography.
Can you provide details on those two microscopes?
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karhukainen
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Re: Help with buying a microscope for photography

#3 Post by karhukainen » Tue Jun 01, 2021 1:42 pm

75RR wrote:
Tue Jun 01, 2021 10:21 am
Can you provide details on those two microscopes?
The other is Leitz Laborlux 12 with very basic objectives and the other is an older Leitz, from the 60s maybe. I use a Lomo photo tube with both of them, although it's not a great fit with the former one. The latter one is lacking one objective (oil) and the existing objectives need cleaning. The Laborlux also misses a filter slot and the head is binocular, so I don't see much point in upgrading it.
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Re: Help with buying a microscope for photography

#4 Post by apochronaut » Tue Jun 01, 2021 2:19 pm

Photomicrography, just as with photography is only going to be as good as the lens that a picture is taken with. Since you already are a photographer for a nature magazine, I would assume you place a lot of trust in your lenses. How much are your lenses worth? A minimum of 500.00 each? Some worth a few thousand?
You are proposing buying a roughly 1500.00 microscope with 5 lenses, plus a condenser, 2 eyepieces , illumination collimating system and a photo relay lens; 10 lens systems in all plus the mechanical parts. Some of those lenses by their nature, should be more precise and more complex than many photo lenses. While the Motic BA310 is by the standards of an average Chinese lab microscope, pretty decent, it is an average Chinese lab microscope with a 2 micron fine focus graduation.
The optical system is achromat. An achromat is an achromat. It is 3 watts of led. Limiting for certain necessary microscope techniques.
You could consider buying the same stand with an alternate illumination system and objectives with better colour correction but that is going to vault the microscope into a whole other price category. How much were you planning on spending?

The second hand options you posted, are only going to be partially suitable, due to the non-plan and achromat nature of some of the optics. However, older Leitz 160mm plan objectives in the fluotar or apo class are fairly inexpensive and if the stand is good, the Laborlux could probably be fitted to be an excellent photo microscope, for the roughly 1500.00 you would have spent on an inferior Motic. It will take some searching, patience and work, though.

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Re: Help with buying a microscope for photography

#5 Post by karhukainen » Tue Jun 01, 2021 3:25 pm

apochronaut wrote:
Tue Jun 01, 2021 2:19 pm
Photomicrography, just as with photography is only going to be as good as the lens that a picture is taken with. Since you already are a photographer for a nature magazine, I would assume you place a lot of trust in your lenses. How much are your lenses worth? A minimum of 500.00 each? Some worth a few thousand?
Although I see your point, I somewhat disagree, and I'm not really *that* kind of a nature photographer anyway. The magazine buys my photographs because they are a little more artsy than your average nature photographs ;)
You are proposing buying a roughly 1500.00 microscope with 5 lenses, plus a condenser, 2 eyepieces , illumination collimating system and a photo relay lens; 10 lens systems in all plus the mechanical parts. Some of those lenses by their nature, should be more precise and more complex than many photo lenses. While the Motic BA310 is by the standards of an average Chinese lab microscope, pretty decent, it is an average Chinese lab microscope with a 2 micron fine focus graduation.
The optical system is achromat. An achromat is an achromat. It is 3 watts of led. Limiting for certain necessary microscope techniques.
You could consider buying the same stand with an alternate illumination system and objectives with better colour correction but that is going to vault the microscope into a whole other price category. How much were you planning on spending?
Like I said in the first post, my budget is around 500-2000 euros. I haven't quite decided how good I want the equipment to be. My current setup(s) aren't good enough but "average" might be just fine.
The second hand options you posted, are only going to be partially suitable, due to the non-plan and achromat nature of some of the optics. However, older Leitz 160mm plan objectives in the fluotar or apo class are fairly inexpensive and if the stand is good, the Laborlux could probably be fitted to be an excellent photo microscope, for the roughly 1500.00 you would have spent on an inferior Motic. It will take some searching, patience and work, though.
In my home country there aren't that many microscopes or related equipment available. It seems shipping prices have radically gotten up and there's also Brexit which limits buying. Those are the main reasons I got interested in the Motic. I know it's Chinese, but it would be an "easy" solution and people seem to be getting very good results with it. But I haven't decided anything yet (hence the thread). My experience and knowledge on microscopes is still pretty limited. For example, I'm not sure how to interpret the numerous abbreviations on objectives. If an objective doesn't have "plan" on its name does it always follow that it's non-plan? And how would I even go about comparing different objectives? There are a few reviews for just about every lens out there but that's not the case with microscope objectives. With the Motic I'd know what to expect at least, unless of course there are some quality issues I'm not aware of.
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Re: Help with buying a microscope for photography

#6 Post by PeteM » Tue Jun 01, 2021 3:45 pm

Seems to me the Laborlux S you're looking at doesn't advance you very far towards you goal of having a great scope for taking photos. The stand is mechanically good, but not likely to be any better than the Laborlux 12 you already own. With the possible exception of the 10x none of the objectives you'll want to be using are particularly well corrected. They generally don't offer wide fields of view or modern optical coatings.

Finding better objectives and a matching trinocular head, photo tube, and relay lens for your Laborlux 12 is one option. It wouldn't hurt to search for the right trinocular head - photo tube - and relay lens. However, my experience has been that the matching photo relay components aren't especially well documented or available for Leica's finite scopes -- and even if you get the right bits you still have a lot of extra glass in front of your sensor. Could be that availability is better in Europe?

Some of the simplest and best solutions for photography would be a more modern infinity microscope with plan fluor or better objectives - and most of the corrections in the objective. This makes hooking up a camera easier. The Motic 310 can be configured this way. My experience with one version of the plan fluor infinity objectives is that they were decent, but clearly not as good as the equivalents from either Nikon Eclipse or Olympus BX UIS objectives. Could be they've improved?

In the US, your budget could get you something like a used Nikon Eclipse 400 or an Olympus BX40 with a properly configured trinocular head and perhaps a couple of plan fluor objectives. There are still some of the Nikon Plan Apo 20x infinite .17 objectives -- originally for gene sequencers -- available for under $200. This would be a spectacular objective for your purposes - and lead one towards a Nikon perhaps coupled with a 40x Plan Fluor.

Either of these (Eclipse or BX) might suit you a bit better than a BA310 if you find one. Someone else might know about Zeiss Axio. Leica DM series can also be good, if you can find the proper relay optics. Fitted with a Nikon trinocular head it will also host the 25mm Nikon objectives.

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Re: Help with buying a microscope for photography

#7 Post by 75RR » Tue Jun 01, 2021 6:37 pm

karhukainen wrote:
Tue Jun 01, 2021 9:28 am
Should both the 160 and 170 objectives work or will I get into problems with photography?
See page 14 of the linked pdf

http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/img ... es7rev.pdf
Zeiss Standard WL (somewhat fashion challenged) & Wild M8
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Re: Help with buying a microscope for photography

#8 Post by lorez2 » Wed Jun 02, 2021 12:43 am

Go here to talk with the experts.

https://www.photomacrography.net/forum/

lorez
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Re: Help with buying a microscope for photography

#9 Post by Scarodactyl » Wed Jun 02, 2021 12:49 am

Photomacrography is a general powerhouse for information about reflected light extreme-macro-to-micro photography equipment. Less so for transmitted light microscopy, though there are certainly some people with expertise in it there. It's certainly an excellent and important resource to be aware of though.

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Re: Help with buying a microscope for photography

#10 Post by karhukainen » Fri Jun 04, 2021 7:29 am

Thanks guys. I could still use with more input on this.
PeteM wrote:
Tue Jun 01, 2021 3:45 pm
Seems to me the Laborlux S you're looking at doesn't advance you very far towards you goal of having a great scope for taking photos. The stand is mechanically good, but not likely to be any better than the Laborlux 12 you already own. With the possible exception of the 10x none of the objectives you'll want to be using are particularly well corrected. They generally don't offer wide fields of view or modern optical coatings.

Finding better objectives and a matching trinocular head, photo tube, and relay lens for your Laborlux 12 is one option. It wouldn't hurt to search for the right trinocular head - photo tube - and relay lens. However, my experience has been that the matching photo relay components aren't especially well documented or available for Leica's finite scopes -- and even if you get the right bits you still have a lot of extra glass in front of your sensor. Could be that availability is better in Europe?
I'm looking at this Laborlux S mainly because it's located near and it already has a trinocular head with a photo tube, as well as the filter slot. My Laborlux 12 doesn't have any of these and it really seems I can't get them anywhere that cheap, at least unless I'm willing to spend a lot of time searching. So I figured the Laborlux S set would get me started at least, and then I could upgrade the objectives when I find suitable one. Shipping objectives is far cheaper than shipping bigger parts and maybe they are also reasonably easy to find?
Some of the simplest and best solutions for photography would be a more modern infinity microscope with plan fluor or better objectives - and most of the corrections in the objective. This makes hooking up a camera easier. The Motic 310 can be configured this way. My experience with one version of the plan fluor infinity objectives is that they were decent, but clearly not as good as the equivalents from either Nikon Eclipse or Olympus BX UIS objectives. Could be they've improved?
This guy: https://www.instagram.com/my.microscopic.world/ says he uses the Motic 310E but I've wondered if the objectives are better than the ones that come with the standard price. I emailed Motic with some questions, but they never answered me which is annoying.
In the US, your budget could get you something like a used Nikon Eclipse 400 or an Olympus BX40 with a properly configured trinocular head and perhaps a couple of plan fluor objectives. There are still some of the Nikon Plan Apo 20x infinite .17 objectives -- originally for gene sequencers -- available for under $200. This would be a spectacular objective for your purposes - and lead one towards a Nikon perhaps coupled with a 40x Plan Fluor.
I'm in Finland and the market for second hand microscopes is very very limited here. Finding anything is up to pure chance. Ordering from the US on the other hand is slow and I would end up paying such high shipping + taxes + toll costs that it likely isn't worth it.
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Re: Help with buying a microscope for photography

#11 Post by Hobbyst46 » Fri Jun 04, 2021 9:48 am

FWIW, in the past, forum member "vasselle" posted stunning images that he recorded with a Laborlux K.

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Re: Help with buying a microscope for photography

#12 Post by Phill Brown » Fri Jun 04, 2021 11:34 am

Happy to second Nikon 160.
So far I don't prefer LED over 30w halogen or infinity over 160.

The quality of the slide clamp says a lot for the brand.

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Re: Help with buying a microscope for photography

#13 Post by karhukainen » Sat Jun 05, 2021 5:56 pm

https://microscopyofnature.com/praise-humble-achromat Still undecided, but reading this (and some other sources) makes me think apo objectives are probably unnecessary for my needs.
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Re: Help with buying a microscope for photography

#14 Post by Dubious » Sat Jun 05, 2021 7:36 pm

Interesting article. If achromats provide more depth of field, I am very much in favor of that, although I suppose it depends on the type of photography how much that matters.

The Laborlux S with its trinocular head would get you right into photography (its head may also be interchangeable with your Laborlux 12) and it comes with reasonable lenses (assuming everything in good shape). If you go the new microscope route, you should consider getting one with phase contrast, because adding the phase contrast condenser and lenses later often costs a lot more than getting the package at the beginning. I believe there is a version of the Motic BA310 (perhaps it is the BA310E?) that includes the phase contrast package. Amscope, if available where you are, would be a cheaper alternative.

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Re: Help with buying a microscope for photography

#15 Post by PeteM » Sun Jun 06, 2021 1:04 am

I'd agree that you probably don't need apo objectives - but plan objectives would likely be a plus.

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Re: Help with buying a microscope for photography

#16 Post by karhukainen » Sun Jun 06, 2021 8:21 am

Can anyone tell me how Laborlux S and 12 differ?
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Re: Help with buying a microscope for photography

#17 Post by PeteM » Sun Jun 06, 2021 3:09 pm

They're very similar.

One option which might have been available for either scope include a 100 watt halogen lamp vs. the 20 watt type that plugs in the from the back. As a photographer you might the brighter light source and the power supply to drive it.

There was also a different means of focusing available on some of these models. Instead of a separate coarse and fine focus there was a single knob which applies a coarse focus and then when backed up goes into fine focus mode. This doesn't appeal to some people, but it's easy enough to get used to. I don't know if it would be as good for focus stacking (I suspect not - maybe backlash or a shorter fine focus range).

Both of these (the larger lamp and the single knob focus) should be apparent from pictures of the scope.

Either might have a slot above the nosepiece for a polarizer. It comes in straight on for the S. I've seen one 12 with a polarizer coming in at 45 degrees and many without a slot. For epi use the Laborlux 12 HL has a polarizer slot in the epi illuminator. Simple polarization is likely something you'll want while in search of creative images. The presence or absence of a slot should be something you could see in pictures of the scope.

There are also various head options and different dovetail (a sort of blunt dovetail) sizes as Leitz when from generation to generation. This generation wants a 42mm fitting. The previous generation (those 170mm parfocal objectives) used a 41mm fitting. There's also a 43mm fitting for some Orthorlux and Dialux scopes, something like a 44.7+mm fitting for the DM scopes, and a still larger fitting for one of the ultrawide heads. So take care if buying a trinocular head separately.

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Re: Help with buying a microscope for photography

#18 Post by Dubious » Sun Jun 06, 2021 7:46 pm

If it were me and cost were important, I would probably get the Laborlux S, since it's available now near you at a reasonable price and would get you started in microphotography. You could switch parts between it and your Laborlux 12, keep the one you want, and sell on the other. That way, your outlay would be minimal, and even if it turned out to be less than optimal in the process you would learn more about what your next microscope should have.

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Re: Help with buying a microscope for photography

#19 Post by karhukainen » Tue Jun 08, 2021 8:08 am

I've been trying to ask more information on the Laborlux S from the seller. He says he's used a Carl Zeiss camera adapter with a Skywatcher ocular that's originally from a telescope, so I'm doubtful about how well that setup really works for photography. Is it generally difficult to find a suitable photo setup for this microscope? The head appears to be a Leitz #512738 if that matters.
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Re: Help with buying a microscope for photography

#20 Post by Dubious » Tue Jun 08, 2021 5:22 pm

I don't know--maybe someone else here has the answer. Ebay gets a lot of parts for Leitz microscopes but of course it can sometimes be a challenge figuring out if they work for your particular model. I would think that the phototube size/assembly remained the same for a lot of models of the same era, but I just don't know. I would also think parts from other manufacturers (and even for telescopes) might work quite well, so long as they fit. You can find the manual for the Laborlux S at http://earth2geologists.net/Microscopes ... ctions.pdf.

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Re: Help with buying a microscope for photography

#21 Post by PeteM » Tue Jun 08, 2021 5:35 pm

My take, as suggested earlier, is that Leitz white Laborlux era finite scopes are excellent IF you can find one properly equipped for your somewhat advanced photo needs. If using a full frame camera, you want about a 2.5x equivalent relay lens (which they got with an 8x photo lens and a .32x adapter in front of a 35mm film camera). Either that or go afocal with a compensating eyepiece and whatever camera lens adds the least distortion. Your ideal specs would also include a 100 watt illuminator, Leitz plan achromat objectives or better, compensating eyepieces, a good condenser, and a proper 42mm trinocular head.

Possible, but not easy to find. Likely a bit more expensive to find it all in one Leitz scope that you know won't have a mish mash of parts (which sounds like the photo setup on the S model you're contemplating). Likely to include a few disappointments along the way if you try to piece a compatible setup together at lower cost.

Pay more for something like an Olympus BX40, Nikon E400, Motic BA400, or other generic equivalent microscopes and you'll have optics with a somewhat larger field of view (22mm vs. 18mm for the standard Leitz NPL), modern coatings and maybe slightly better contrast, and an infinity optical system needingd very few relay lens corrections en route to a sensor. And also proper relay lenses (e.g. 2.5x Nikon PLI or the Olympus equivalents) and adapters to fit them readily available in the used market.

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Re: Help with buying a microscope for photography

#22 Post by PeteM » Tue Jun 08, 2021 5:37 pm

To add, if buying from Ebay in the US you might assemble a proper Leitz Laborlux system togther for under $700. A used Olympus BX40, Nikon E400, Motic BA400, AccuScope 3025, or other generic infinity scopes with a decent fine focus, 10x/22 widefield optics, a trinocular head, plan achromat objectives, and at least a 30 watt lamp might cost $800-$1500 based on personal experience acquiring all four. Plan Fluorite objectives put the prices higher for Olympus and Nikon. The relay lenses and photo adapter you'd need, if not included, might add a couple hundred. If you ever needed more that a 30 watt halogen source (the standard for the Leitz is 20 watts) then a LED retrofit might run another $200.

The point being that while you're looking for a local deal on Leitz Laborlux stuff, you might keep an eye out for the half a dozen brands of more modern infinity scopes in the BX40-E400-BA400 class. The new BA310 you mentioned is a possibility, but expensive new and a slight step down from the BA400 series (which I'd prefer if a used one showed up in good shape).

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