MicrobeHunter.com Microscopy Forum

Anyone have direct experience with this particular side camera port on a Polyvar MET? The image isn't centered. I can't seem to find any documentation on centering/aligning the image and thought someone may know.

Regards,
-JW:

Got it figured out.

Please say how, or years from now someone with the same problem will die inside when they find this thread.

Please always cite your source of copyrighted material.

https://xkcd.com/

wporter wrote: ↑

Thu Jun 04, 2020 9:53 pm

Please always cite your source of copyrighted material.

https://xkcd.com/

This is a pretty informal setting and widely recognizeable source material (like your avatar).
But you're right Mr Munroe deserves his credit.

This is a pretty informal setting and widely recognizeable source material (like your avatar).

The point, which I think you're missing, is that someone might want to look up the original source themselves; they can't do this easily if the source is not identified. It is a matter of thoroughness and politeness to the other forum members to spell out where the information or commentary (humorous or otherwise), came from. While (Calvin and) Hobbes is widely recognized around the world, xkcd is somewhat more obscure, and there are a lot of people in the forum that might derive some entertainment from it if they knew where to go.

BTW, it is a very appropriate strip that you reproduced...

I removed the camera port from the scope and disassembled and cleaned it. I thought there might have been some misalignment issues internally that could be adjusted but that wasn't the case. So I was still dumbfounded. It's totally obvious when looking down inside the camera port tube that the individual magnifiers are obstructing the view of the specimen on the stage. I removed the entire top assemble for the hundredth time (so it seems) and peered inside to see what the problem might be. Not sure why but I tried moving one of the prisms by hand. I wasn't sure if that was possible because there wasn't any sort of knob attached to it. Once I noticed it was movable I looked in the port again and saw it made a difference, so I moved it all of the way, as far as I could, towards the camera port 'opening' in the scope body. That solved the problem. I conjured some adapter components to see if I could mount my camera on the camera port. There's a chrome adapter on the top with threads. I haven't measured the pitch of the threads but I had a clamping photo relay type adapter that just fit over the threads, so I gave that a try (hopefully I didn't bugger up the threads). Although the setup is somewhat stable it's not a perfectly perpendicular or aligned properly.

You can sort of see the threads on the chrome adapter below. Below is the relay lens I used and also the camera setup. There is no vignetting with this setup. Also it's not parfocal setup (meaning to me, that the camera isn't in focus at the same time the eyepieces are. It's close but needs to be fixed. The relay lens is inside that setup way down in the bottom of the chrome sections. Lastly the objective used for the image below was a ELWD 20x/0.40 with the magnifier set at 0.8 (not sure why I had it set there). Just a small stacked image set, only 15 images. It's a 100% cropped image. I cropped the stacked image set to get the BEST in focus area. This is the upper 1/4 of the overall image the rest of the image (3/4 of it) was cropped out since it was OOF. I think the out of focused areas are due to my camera setup not being perpendicular and aligned with the camera port. Remember it's just clamped on the threads of that chrome adapter. IF that isn't the problem then something else must be wrong.

Regardless I'm not going to stay with this setup. Instead I'm going to machine some adapters and a cover plate for the top and remove the original film camera section that's on the scope now.

I think your adapter is from a third party supplier such as Diagnostic Instruments. The threaded portion is likely a C'Mount. The camera adapters that Reichert made for the Polyvar went horizontally to the left side of the scope. They also had an optic in them that used a wide Field eyepiece.
The duel reflex module that is effectively a beamsplitter enters the optical path from the opposite side of the scope. They were offered with a 90/10 or 50/50 split. The alignment issue could be the related to the dual reflex module not being fully inserted. The would be controlled by a silver knob on the bottom of the module.
The mag-changer setting of 0.8x permitted a FOV of 30mm visually and a FN number of 24mm to the camera. That was unique in the industry for a wide field photo system.
The Polyvar while even using optics from the 70's has the best DIC that has been ever produced. Transmitted or Reflected.

wabutter wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 05, 2020 9:10 pm

I think your adapter is from a third party supplier such as Diagnostic Instruments.

Thanks for chiming in. Do you mean this or the adapter I conjured together?

-JW:

... found this in a PDF I have.

I was referring to the adapter pin the image you provided. Not the adapter to the DSLR.

wabutter wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 09, 2020 3:41 am

I was referring to the adapter pin the image you provided. Not the adapter to the DSLR.

Thanks, I did a little searching but wasn't able to find any information on it. I know there's a beamsplitter and optics in it but that's about it.