My first "decent" picture: rotifer ?

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pjoris
Posts: 30
Joined: Wed Jan 04, 2012 1:33 pm

My first "decent" picture: rotifer ?

Post by pjoris »

Just getting my first good microscope setup (an Olympus BH2) and I am getting results with which I am happy for now. Now just identifying these critters; I assume this is a rotifer and that the reason I don't find it in "Das Leben in Watertropfen" is that the orientation there is different ("head on" instead of sideways). Any ideas on the ID and suggestion to improve (apart from working cleaner to have less dust): blue filter maybe ?

Joris

Phase contrast/brightfield/darkfield

Image

Pau
Site Admin
Posts: 6053
Joined: Wed Jan 20, 2010 8:57 am
Location: Valencia, Spain

Post by Pau »

Joris, very good start!

Yes a blue filter (not very strong) will improve the white balance when you use incandescent or hallogen lamps. To do a more accurate WB a custom WB measurament with the same lamp power before the shot or to shot RAW and correct it later are the best approaches.
Pau

pjoris
Posts: 30
Joined: Wed Jan 04, 2012 1:33 pm

Post by pjoris »

I am noticing the darkfield images to be/appear less sharp (visually as wel as in the photograph). Is this inherent to darkfield (and maybe due to the thickness of the sample) or is there another possible reason ? I am using the phase condenser at 100x setting to get the darkfield with a 20x objective - maybe also the fact there is no variable iris in the objective results in more diffraction for darkfield ?

Some more info for other newbees like me: I am using a generic eyepiece camera adapter (with optics) from ebay for my pentax DSLR (80USD); I guess this means my images are not fully corrected and I'm sure the optics in the cheapish adapter are far inferior to the olympus photo-eyepieces (and the olympus objectives), but it wil do for now (as this is quite convenient - certainly without trinocular head).

Joris

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