DIC with non-DIC CF plan Nikon objectives?

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

Moderators: rjlittlefield, ChrisR, Chris S., Pau

grebly
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu May 10, 2018 7:04 am

DIC with non-DIC CF plan Nikon objectives?

Post by grebly »

Hi there,

New to the forum, and I am wondering if those experienced with Nikon infinity-corrected objectives may shed some light on something that has been puzzling me. The short question is -- what makes objectives labelled "DIC" special?

I have an optiphot 100 (infinity corrected series), and a set of CF Plan BD objectives. These work just fine with polarized light micrography, so it leads me to believe that they are strain-free/nonbirefringent. I cannot find much literature online about this series of objectives, but is it possible to use these objectives in a EPI DIC setup instead of the equivalent DIC objectives? They have the same numerical aperatures as their DIC counterparts, and I would not imagine that the space between the prism and optics would change. Wondering if anyone has any experience here.

Thanks,
Grebly

Ichthyophthirius
Posts: 1152
Joined: Thu Mar 07, 2013 5:24 am

Re: DIC with non-DIC CF plan Nikon objectives?

Post by Ichthyophthirius »

grebly wrote:I would not imagine that the space between the prism and optics would change.
Hi Grebly,

That CAN be the case. The manufacturer has to design the DIC prism in a way that it matches the position of the exit pupil of the objective (which is usually inside the objective, so the DIC prism has to be of the Nomarski type), and vice versa.

In some cases the manufacturers have special DIC objectives that precisely match the DIC prisms. Using an ordinary version of the objective can lead to mismatches and poorer performance (which sometimes can be rectified by using spacers between objective and DIC prism).

However, I don't know if that is the case for Nikon CF Plan BD objectives.

"DIC" objectives are also supposed to have low strain as they are used in a polarisation method.

Regards, Ichty

grebly
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu May 10, 2018 7:04 am

Post by grebly »

Thanks for the reply Itchy. I've got a DIC lens coming, so I will do a side-by-side comparison and follow up with what I find.

Post Reply Previous topicNext topic