Nikon 4X Water Immersion Objectives

Have questions about the equipment used for macro- or micro- photography? Post those questions in this forum.

Moderators: rjlittlefield, ChrisR, Chris S., Pau

dmillard
Posts: 637
Joined: Tue Oct 24, 2006 7:37 pm
Location: Austin, Texas

Nikon 4X Water Immersion Objectives

Post by dmillard »

Are currently for sale on eBay here:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... %26otn%3D2

The cone is easily screwed off, resulting in a working distance similar to that of the standard CF N Plan 4/0.13 objectives. The image results, as seen in these actual pixel crops taken at approximately 4X, also appear indistinguishable to me.

Image
4/0.13


Image
4/0.13 WI

David

Eric F
Posts: 246
Joined: Tue Nov 11, 2008 1:38 pm
Location: Sacramento, Calif.

Post by Eric F »

David,

Thanks for this info; I took the plunge! The seller seems to have more of them available,

Eric

rjlittlefield
Site Admin
Posts: 23561
Joined: Tue Aug 01, 2006 8:34 am
Location: Richland, Washington State, USA
Contact:

Post by rjlittlefield »

David, are these center or someplace else? If center, then what do the edges and corners look like?

--Rik

dmillard
Posts: 637
Joined: Tue Oct 24, 2006 7:37 pm
Location: Austin, Texas

Post by dmillard »

rjlittlefield wrote:David, are these center or someplace else? If center, then what do the edges and corners look like?

--Rik
These are close to the center. Here are the full frame shots - edges and corners look very similar in each. It looks as though all the 4X lenses are gone, but the same seller still has some new and used 10X WI objectives.

Image
4/0.13

Image
4/0.13 WI

David

rjlittlefield
Site Admin
Posts: 23561
Joined: Tue Aug 01, 2006 8:34 am
Location: Richland, Washington State, USA
Contact:

Post by rjlittlefield »

Thanks, David.

By the way, let me congratulate you and your microscope on getting the subject field so precisely matched between these two objectives!

Did it get the centering so precise all by itself, or did you have to tweak it?

--Rik

dmillard
Posts: 637
Joined: Tue Oct 24, 2006 7:37 pm
Location: Austin, Texas

Post by dmillard »

rjlittlefield wrote:Thanks, David.

By the way, let me congratulate you and your microscope on getting the subject field so precisely matched between these two objectives!

Did it get the centering so precise all by itself, or did you have to tweak it?

--Rik
Thanks Rik -

I just rotated the turret for the full frame shots. For the crops, I used ImageJ and "tweaking" :)

David

ChrisR
Site Admin
Posts: 8668
Joined: Sat Mar 14, 2009 3:58 am
Location: Near London, UK

Post by ChrisR »

I'm curious as to how to use these things.
Ok, so you dip them into your local pond and things swim by.
At 4x I can understand that, just, but at 10x or 40x, wouldn't they be a bit mobile? And if they're dead, why not use a coverslip? :?

I think I might have one somewhere.

g4lab
Posts: 1437
Joined: Fri May 23, 2008 11:07 am

Post by g4lab »

The aren't really intended for looking at pond life. They are intended to look at live slices of animal brains with microcellular electrodes stuck into them (with the aid of these objectives.) the reactions of the brain slices are how they test such things as Alzheimers drugs, anti-Parkinson's drugs, anti depressants etc. The slices don't try to move but need to be kept
submerged in normal saline or Ringer's solution.

For more info google "patch clamp" or cellular electrophysiology.

Tesselator
Posts: 388
Joined: Sat Mar 27, 2010 11:40 pm
Location: Japan
Contact:

Post by Tesselator »

For pond critters and such there's the usual glassware:

Image Image
Image Image
Image


--
Sorry, my camera is busy so I had to use my cellphone. :p

Chris S.
Site Admin
Posts: 4042
Joined: Sun Apr 05, 2009 9:55 pm
Location: Ohio, USA

Re: Nikon 4X Water Immersion Objectives

Post by Chris S. »

dmillard wrote:The cone is easily screwed off, resulting in a working distance similar to that of the standard CF N Plan 4/0.13 objectives. The image results, as seen in these actual pixel crops taken at approximately 4X, also appear indistinguishable to me.
(Quoted from http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... hp?p=57413)

Hah! So this might be a standard CF N achromat with a cone on the front for water observation? This is a very useful insight--suggests I can make a similar cone for my Nikon 4x/0.20 apo for water immersion use. Very cool.

--Chris

Tim M
Posts: 28
Joined: Wed Dec 08, 2010 7:29 pm
Location: South Jersey, USA

Re: Nikon 4X Water Immersion Objectives

Post by Tim M »

Chris S. wrote:Hah! So this might be a standard CF N achromat with a cone on the front for water observation? This is a very useful insight--suggests I can make a similar cone for my Nikon 4x/0.20 apo for water immersion use. Very cool.

--Chris
If it helps, here's a quick snap of the water objective with the black cone screwed off. The bottom lens appears to be only a mm or two from the bottom of the objective shell (hope I can keep from impacting too many beetles and otherwise)

Image

Near as I can measure, the black cap is about 14mm deep from window tip to collar where it meets the objective. If the working distance of this objective is the same ~16mm as the non-water 4/0.13, then it would seem as there's not much WD left with the cap on?

Hope that helps,
Tim

Edward Ruden
Posts: 42
Joined: Mon Feb 21, 2011 10:24 am
Location: Albuquerque, NM
Contact:

Re: Nikon 4X Water Immersion Objectives

Post by Edward Ruden »

Chris S. wrote: Hah! So this might be a standard CF N achromat with a cone on the front for water observation? This is a very useful insight--suggests I can make a similar cone for my Nikon 4x/0.20 apo for water immersion use. Very cool.
--Chris
I'd like to get my hands on one of these. The purpose of the glass cover is more than to just keep the objective dry. As with a coverslip, imaging through a dielectric medium (like water) with a flat interface introduces spherical aberration. The greater the depth, the greater the aberration. If the objective base is just the regular 4/0.13 objective (not corrected for such, per se), then the cover needs to do this. The short working distance (with the cap) will minimize aberration, even if the glass is flat. That's why it sticks out so far. This may suffice for an N/A of only 0.13 (the aberration increases rapidly with N/A). So, you may only need to make sure your improvised cover similarly minimizes working distance. However, further correction may be needed by giving the glass cover a spherically curved surface, which introduces its own aberration of the same magnitude, but opposite sign to cancel it out.

If you peer through the detached cap, does it magnify or reduce images seen through it?

zzffnn
Posts: 1896
Joined: Thu May 22, 2014 1:25 pm
Location: Houston, Texas, USA
Contact:

Post by zzffnn »

How much did that Nikon 4x WI objective cost 7 years ago?

There are 3 Nikon WI objectives on eBay now, priced at $900, $3000 and $5000 :shock:

I like to use WI LOMO objectives to look at pond protists. Those LOMOs go from 30x NA 0.7-0.9 to 70x NA 1.23 and 80x NA 1.0.

I just bought a LOMO oil immersion 10x NA 0.22 (190mm pol, around 28 mm parfocal) and will try it in water immersion. My guess is that at such low NA, using water instead of water may not degrade image significantly. Even if it does, I still have use for a scanning low power oil immersion objective.
Selling my Canon FD 200mm F/2.8 lens

Edward Ruden
Posts: 42
Joined: Mon Feb 21, 2011 10:24 am
Location: Albuquerque, NM
Contact:

$189.99 in 2013

Post by Edward Ruden »

zzffnn wrote:How much did that Nikon 4x WI objective cost 7 years ago?
They don't show up often. One on eBay went for $189.99 in 2013.

Post Reply Previous topicNext topic