New toy and old subjects

piotr · Post by **piotr** » Sat Nov 17, 2007 7:43 pm

I have been experimenting with a home-made DIC setup for a while. I am using Zeiss Photomicroscope III stand, so adding custom attachments is relatively easy. I have a few Olympus DIC condenser prisms and a DIC slider (U-DICTH). The slider doesn't fit Zeiss slider port, but I carefully disassembled it and removed the prism, so I can use it anyway. The effects are very nice and the best combination I found is Olympus 20x planapo objective with 40x/oil prism (UNPD40OIL). I can't fit the condenser prism into a Zeiss turret, so I put it into a holder below the condenser. Background is a bit uneven, but the DIC effect is there and it is spectacular when watched with eyes.

Temporarily I don't have a DSLR camera, so the images are a bit blurry and noisy, not nearly as nice as I expect them to be. But using DIC is a real pleasure. It is like discovering microscopy from the beginning.

Zeiss PM3 stand with Olympus Planapo 20x/0.70 objective, Sony DSC-V1 camera, background removed with Olympus Background Subtraction tool.

Paramecium sp.

Marine nematode

Oil droplets dispersed in water

Ken Ramos · Post by **Ken Ramos** » Sat Nov 17, 2007 7:48 pm

However you did it there Piotr, you seemed to have done it right. The crystals in the paramecium really light up and those oil droplets are really cool too!

piotr · Post by **piotr** » Sat Nov 17, 2007 7:52 pm

Thank you, Ken!

Still a lot of room for improvement - but I'm glad I found some time for microscopy!

gpmatthews · Post by **gpmatthews** » Sun Nov 18, 2007 2:32 am

Piotr - it's good to see someone else using an improvised DIC setup - I married Leitz optics to my Zeiss stand and like you am very pleased with the results. I also found that it gave a refreshing new start.

After you've used the DIC for a while, I found it similarly instructive to go back to a simple transmitted light setup and also use darkground and COL - it gives a much deeper appreciation of the capabilities of some of the simple techniques.

bernhardinho · Post by **bernhardinho** » Sun Nov 18, 2007 8:45 am

Hi Piotr

very impressive pics. Do you happen to know Neat Image ?

www.neatimage.com

It is a very nice and easy to use tool to denoise pics!!

Bernhard

piotr · Post by **piotr** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 2:08 am

Graham - thank you! Your excellent results were inspiration for my experiments. I still haven't figured out how to properly position the condenser prism, but I keep trying!

Bernhard - thank you for your kind words. Yes, I know Neat Image, but I haven't tried it on the DIC images yet. Great idea! The noise is visible, indeed, especially after the contrast is boosted in a picture editor.