Omax with adapter for Nikon camera

[gekko]

Hi Lymia,
Congratulations on your excellent new microscope. Here is some useful information that should answer most (if not all) of your questions:
http://www.microbehunter.com/connecting ... icroscope/
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=882
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=89
I hope this helps as a starting point.

[The QCC]

Lymia:

The microscope and camera adapter you have should take excellent photos that are a bit soft around the outer edges.
The camera adapter replaces the lens of your camera. The camera should be set to Aperture Priority and let the camera set the speed. The camera sees the adapter as a 0 f stop lens. You control the exposure by adjusting the ISO and/or the illumination.
The camera adapter has a 2x relay lens, so your 40x obj. will give you 80x magnification.

The illuminator on your microscope is a 3 watt LED. This is rather under powered for Darkfield work with obj. 10x and greater.
The LED is replaceable. Find out the voltage at the LED terminals and search for a 6 watt LED replacement.

If your Nikon supports Live View AND you use the Windows operating system, there is a free programme called DigiCam Control that lets you remotely control the camera while viewing the microscope image on your computer display.
DigiCam Control for Nikon cameras

[The QCC]

Lymia:
Your Nikon d3300 has a 24MP APS-C sensor and is capable of taking full HD movies.
Please note, your still photos (JPEG, RAW) have a resolution of 6000 x 4000 pixels. HD movies have a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. Your still photo images have considerably more resolution than your movies.
Take several still photos of your specimens. If you can identify whatever you are looking for, there is nothing wrong with your camera/adapter combination.

Once you master the movie taking feature, take a movies at full H.264 HD (1920) 60fps, 30fps and H.264 HD (720) 60fps. Compare the movies to find which one gave you the best results.

You really do have a good camera in the Nikon d3300.
If you still are not satisfied with your images, you can purchase a Nikon PL 2.5x projection lens and adapter for your microscope. This would give you the optimum image quality from your microscope.
The PL lens and adapter may be unwieldy on a microscope without a photo tube.

[75RR]

Hi Lymia,
Since your microscope is designed to work with a Darkfield Oil Condenser the illumination provided should be enough.
Have you contacted the sellers/manufactures to tell them of your problem?
It could well be a simple matter of technique.
Do you know of anyone that could help you with the microscope setup?

[The QCC]

Lymia:
H.264 is a video format. Your camera supports two formats: H.264 (Best) and MPEG-4 (Normal) in three resolutions, 1920, 720, 424 at several frame rate per second (fps).
Look in the camera manual for the video or videography section. It will explain how to set your camera for various video quality recording.

A projection lens is a specially designed eyepiece for microscope photography. It is not meant for humans to look at specimens.
The recommended photo eyepiece for your camera is a 2x, not a 2.5x as I stated earlier.
A used Nikon PL 2.0x is approx. $90.00CDN if you can find one. New, the lens costs more than $200.00CDN
The projection lens fits into the eyepiece tube. The camera is connected to the microscope with a tube and camera adapter ring. The lens of the camera is not used.

PA1Graphic.gif (8.88 KiB) Viewed 10660 times

If you desire more magnification than 2x and your eyepieces that come with your microscope are high quality, you could use the 10x eyepiece.

This is the adapter tube to use for a Nikon camera to a microscope.
Nikon photo adapter
You may want to get a set of extension tubes to move the camera farther back from the eyepiece if the image is too large.
Nikon manual extension tubes
1 Camera photo adapter
2 T2 extension tube
3 Manual camera extension tubes

IMG_0368.jpg (45.21 KiB) Viewed 10660 times

[The QCC]

Lymia:

There is no part missing from your microscope. Your microscope does not have a photo tube option and there is not microscope in your model line that has a photo tube.
I stated the setup may be unwieldy because the length of the camera adapter tube is long and with the camera on the end would put stress on the eyepiece assembly.

I looked at your linked video and the author does not state what microscope, camera combination was used to make the video.
Your camera and microscope as it is now configured is capable of making movies equal to or better than the youTube video.

Please check this link Preparing Blood Slides or ask others on the forum how to prepare blood test slides.
Your problem may be in your slide preparation.

[gekko]

Lymia, if I may butt in, for what it is worth, I would advise against attaching a heavy camera to a binocular head, especially with a long extension. I wouldn't subject my microscope head to the resulting torque. My first choice would be a good USB camera. Second choice a small point-&-shoot that has been shown to have a suitable entrance pupil to allow its successful use with a microscope eyepiece (afocal method), and attach that with some special clamp (they have clamps that can be used with telescopes for that purpose that may work with your microscope). Both are capable of giving excellent results. I would use the excellent Nikon you have for taking macro shots of critters and for general photography instead. My 2 cents' worth.

[The QCC]

Lymia:
Your Nikon camera is vastly superior to any USB camera you can purchase under $2000.00.
The adapter you are currently using is more than adequate for your needs.

The height of the condenser is adjusted to give even illumination across the aperture of the objective, not to adjust the amount of illumination.
You adjust the condenser aperture to control the amount of light entering the condenser.
The oil condenser must be at its maximum height just microns below the glass slide.
Your oil condenser will not function properly if it is not in its proper position.

Switch to your brightfield condenser and look at your specimen. If it it looks OK, put a darkfield stop in the filter holder.

I am not familiar with darkfield condensers, but I assume they have a way of setting the size of the darkfield stop. Low power objectives(<10x) use small stops, high power obj.(=>10x) use large stops. Are you using the darkfield condenser properly?

[The QCC]

Your darkfield condenser is designed to be used only with the 100x obj.
If your specimen is properly prepared, the 20w halogen lamp should provide enough illumination.
Use your brightfield condenser with a lower magnification obj. and place a darkfield stop in the filter holder.
These articles from Olympus on Darkfield illumination are quite informative.
You can easily make a darkfield stop out of black paper.

[gekko]

The reason for my reluctance to use the Nikon DSLR was because of the disadvantage that The QCC mentioned above: the stress it would put on your microscope. I agree with The QCC that the Nikon will produce better videos, if that is your main interest (for stills, I don't think you will be making mural-size prints like The QCC makes, so you won't need the excellent resolution, even though the Nikon will produce cleaner images on account of its larger sensor). My suggestions would be to first try using the Nikon with its own lens on a tripod set up to "look" through the microscope's eyepiece (so it is not supported by the microscope) using the "afocal" method, which should give you first class results. The downside would be the inconvenience of trying to squint through one eyepiece with the large camera looking through the other. However, if you can setup the camera for "tethered" operation, so you are looking at your computer screen rather than squinting through the microscope's eyepiece, then that, I think, would be an excellent solution. With the afocal method, you won't need a projection lens or adapter of any sort. But depending on the positions of the exit pupil of the microscope's eyepiece and the entrance pupil of your camera lens, you may get some vignetting of the image (you need to experiment with the distance between the lens and eyepiece, and if it is a zoom lens, the zoom setting to get the least vingetting; camera focus should be set to manual and at infinity). But since there is nothing to buy, you can try this and see if you can live with it (results, as I said, should be excellent).

[gekko]

Hi Lymia, I'm not sure what you did. What I intended to suggest ('afocal method') was to remove any adapter lenses that are not part of the microscope proper, put back the original eyepiece, and then have the camera "look" through the eyepiece, i.e the camera takes the place of the eye.

[The QCC]

Lymia:

I have attached two photos comparing a 2.5x Nikon Projection lens with a 10WF eyepiece.The photos are of the same location on the slide. The original photos are RAW full size images for the camera resampled to 640x480 for the forum.
You will immediately notice the larger magnification with the 10x eyepiece. You will also notice the better quality of the 2.5x PL.
Photo 1 10x eyepiece.

10x eyepiece with APS-C sensor. 2x obj.

Rubble10_XSL10X_2x_04.jpg (252.02 KiB) Viewed 10591 times

Photo 2 2.5x PL

2.5x PL with an APS-C sensor. 2x obj.

Rubble10_XSLNX_2x_03.jpg (317.34 KiB) Viewed 10591 times

[The QCC]

Lymia:
The photos are meant to show:
a) The difference in magnification between a 10x eyepiece and a 2.5x PL eyepiece
b) The difference in quality between an excellent eyepiece (2.5x PL) and the eyepiece (10x WF) that comes with a standard microscope.
Both photos were taken with an old Canon Rebel XS 10MP APS-C camera.
Your Nikon is superior to my old Rebel XS and would take much better photos.

If you can see the detail your are searching for through the microscope eyepiece, but it does not appear in your Nikon photos then your camera adapter is at fault. Not your camera.
If your camera adapter looks like this

Microscopenet camera adapter

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then I would definitely follow Gekko's advice on using your camera in afocal mode.
If you have a non zoom lens, use it and not your zoom lens.

[JimT]

Lymia, let me tell you about my set up which I am quite happy with and hope will give you some ideas.

I have a binocular scope like you. I have a Canon DSLR (you have a Nikon). The Canon allows remote shooting and camera adjustments with a computer. I think Nikon does also.

My technique is I mount the camera on a tripod, set it to manual mode, remove the lens, and attach extension tubes that I modified with a collar to fit over the microscope 10x eyepiece. Then I look at the image projected on the computer, fine tune the focus on the microscope, adjust the exposure or ISO as necessary and take the picture (this is called eyepiece projection and works very well). Finally I look at the RAW image (I recommend you shoot RAW if you plan to edit) and change the ISO or exposure as necessary for the final image.

You will get much better images with your Nikon than with a small sensor microscope imager so don't give up yet.

[The QCC]

Lymia:

This is essentially what JimT is describing .
1 - Place your Nikon camera on a tripod,
2 - Remove the lens.
3 - Attach one or two manual extension tubes.
Manual extension tubes

Manual extension tubes

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The tubes are inexpensive, buy two.
4 - Place your 10x eyepiece in your microscope. Turn on the light and place your specimen on the stage. Focus using the eyepiece.
5 - Slide the camera and extension tubes over the eyepiece.
6 - Use Digicam to look at your microscope and specimen.
7 - Adjust the height of camera until the image fills the four corners of the screen. You want the maximum image size, nor quality at this stage.
8 - Lock the tripod position.
9 - Tape a piece of black cloth around the bottom of the extension tubes and the eyepiece tube to block out external light.
10 - Focus the microscope for a sharp picture.
You will not get a better picture short of purchasing a $2000.00 USB camera.
Or
I can sell you my Canon 5D MK11 with manual extension tubes.

[JimT]

QCC, excellent further explanation. Even I could follow those directions

Lymia, good luck.

[The QCC]

Lymia:

You adjust the colour balance in your Nikon camera.
Set the white balance to Tungsten. That will clear up your photos and movies.

[The QCC]

You do not need the specimen on the stage to set the white balance.
Just place a blank slide and set the white balance.
The camera will save the setting, it will not need changing until you adjust the brightness or change lamps.