New here and want to take pictures

Pau · Post by **Pau** » Sun Oct 28, 2012 1:12 pm

Eddie wrote:Okay my very first shots taken with Canon Powershot S30 3.1 mp portable camera set on Manual hand held over my photo tube. I put a Zeiss 8X KPL eyepiece in the top of the photo tube. I know the quality is not good but, it's a start.

How do I improve? What's my next step?

Nothing really wrong, in fact very good for a first attempt!

You can improve the exposure compensation: BF needs more overexposure while the pol one a bit less underexposure and the lambda plate one some underesposure.
For BF you also need to set up the adequate color temperature (too yellow) or at least place a blue filter and you have some light uneveness likely related with the condenser position.
In fact most of it can be corrected in post processing

Eddie · Post by **Eddie** » Mon Oct 29, 2012 8:31 am

Thanks Pau!

The "Bright field" shot was actually taken with both polarizer and analyzer in place but not crossed, so I could get better resolution and contrast.

For all the shots, I had to look down the photo port to make sure of focus because focus through the binocs and the photo port was a bit off. If I can get it parfocal, I should be able to get the lighting, contrast and resolution better. How do I get where what I see in the binocs is the same as whats in the photo port?

Pau · Post by **Pau** » Mon Oct 29, 2012 11:17 am

Eddie wrote:The "Bright field" shot was actually taken with both polarizer and analyzer in place but not crossed, so I could get better resolution and contrast.

Yes, I thought it because the image shows interference colors

Because your monocular photo tube isn't focusable (a later grey model is) to get parfocality you have two options:

- if both eyepieces are focusable, focus in a very small and not deep subject (a dust speck in the slide or a detail on a diatom for example) with a 10X objective looking trough the eyepiece at the phototube and without moving the microscope focus, focus the viewing eyepieces with its focusing rings.
- put a focusing eyepiece at the photo tube and do the inverse method.

(or if the focus on the photoport is lower than the one in the viewing eyepieces you can raise its eyepiece a bit with rings or fixing it with adhesive tape, or any other DIY trick)