Twelve Spring Flowers - Through The Eye Of An Ultropak Lens

WalterD · Post by **WalterD** » Mon May 22, 2017 9:40 pm

In search for filling the gap in my current range of setups, recently I came across a (beautiful, hammertone) Leitz Orthoplan that was a.o. equipped with phase contrast, interesting oil immersion objectives, low magnification lenses and the Ultropak system.
Ultropak is a refelected darkfield system Leitz introduced in 1937, that could be used with both Ortholux models and the iconic Orthoplan as well. (Through the years several forum members have posted beautiful images made through these lenses.)
Illumination was established by a 20 Watt Led with built in diffusor, installed in the upper lamphouse position.
For this post I've tried to make photographs of very small flowers, e.g. the white flower in the first 5 images is just about 3 mm wide. I've not been able to identify them yet.

1 4x Reflected darkfield

2 4x Reflected darkfield

3 6,5x Reflected darkfield

4 22x Reflected darkfield

5 22x Reflected darkfield

6 4x Reflected darkfield

Thanks for looking.

Marek Mis · Post by **Marek Mis** » Tue May 23, 2017 4:53 am

Very nice and interesting images !

Marek

Cactusdave · Post by **Cactusdave** » Tue May 23, 2017 1:23 pm

Very nice shots, I particularly like the first two. I also have the Ultropak accessory, but mine is on a black Ortholux. It can give very good results, but I have found that it is often useful to have a polariser in the light path before the subject to cut down unwanted reflections and improve contrast. It is a bit limited by the fact that there doesn't seem to be a lower power than X3.8 and I find that lens not easy to use. It has a huge working distance and I can't drop the Ortholux stage far enough to reach focus. I have resorted to putting slides on the condenser mount under the stage, and using the condenser focus to focus the subject! The X22 gives very nice results with large diatoms mounted dry.

Pau · Post by **Pau** » Tue May 23, 2017 2:27 pm

Excellent images!

WalterD · Post by **WalterD** » Tue May 23, 2017 10:02 pm

Thanks for your positive response!
@ Cactusdave: I've seen (in the manual) the way the Ultropak with illuminator was mounted on the black Ortholux. Interesting suggestion to use polarising filter; was also thinking about combination with analyzer to create polarisation with reflected light...
The advantage of the Orthoplan is the very wide field of view because of the 30mm eyepieces. This allows you to create images of heads of smaller insects and entire flowers without stitching. 3,8x or 4x is indeed the lowest magnification Leitz has been manufacturing.
The diffusor that is mounted on the "power led" together with a 2nd diffusor in the light path have a positive effect on distribution of light in the image. In addition to this, the 2 sector diaphragms are useful as well.

Six more photographs: 7 & 8 stem and leaf parts of the same small flower in 6. (8=22x objective). 9 another unidentified tiny flower. 10 poppy detail.
11&12 forgetmenots flower and buds, 4x

carlos.uruguay · Post by **carlos.uruguay** » Wed May 24, 2017 6:36 pm

Very nice!

Smokedaddy · Post by **Smokedaddy** » Wed May 24, 2017 9:43 pm

Excellent WalterD!