Microscope Question

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NikonUser
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Microscope Question

Post by NikonUser »

I have a binocular stereoscope which gives me good 3-dimensional, large DOF viewing, at 50x.

If I purchased a high quality binocular stereoscope (Nikon, Olympus ?) with a photo tube would I get a similar large DOF in a single frame on the camera?

Stacking even slightly moving bugs with my current camera-bellows-lens is practically impossible.

PROBLEM SHOWN HERE
NU.
student of entomology
Quote – Holmes on ‘Entomology’
” I suppose you are an entomologist ? “
” Not quite so ambitious as that, sir. I should like to put my eyes on the individual entitled to that name.
No man can be truly called an entomologist,
sir; the subject is too vast for any single human intelligence to grasp.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr
The Poet at the Breakfast Table.

Nikon camera, lenses and objectives
Olympus microscope and objectives

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

The DOF/diffraction/magnification tradeoffs are the same for microscopes as for cameras. Stereo scopes give larger DOF than other microscopes because they operate at smaller apertures, giving correspondingly less resolution.

If your photography setup includes a high quality macro lens optimized for use at 5X on a DSLR, then you can just set its aperture to match the DOF and diffraction that the world's best stereo microscope will do at 50X.

If your setup does not include a high quality macro lens optimized for use at 5X, then purchasing a high quality stereo scope would essentially give you such a lens, albeit with no adjustable aperture. But since you already have a decent stereo scope, this would be an expensive way to get the lens. In any case, the improvement over what you'd get from say your current Nikkor lenses would be minor.

Live viewing through a stereo scope gives the illusion of great DOF because: a) if your eyes have any accommodation left, you get to use it; b) you can adjust focus unconsciously in an instant by turning the knob or moving the subject; c) any motion in the subject distracts you from noticing that foreground/background stuff is fuzzy.

There's no magic solution. Sorry.

--Rik

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

rjlittlefield wrote:...then you can just set its aperture to match the DOF and diffraction that the world's best stereo microscope will do at 50X.
Come to think of it, that part about "world's best" may not be strictly true any more. There is a combination of sophisticated optics and digital processing called "wavefront coding" that can significantly increase DOF without degrading resolution very much. It works by optically producing a single image that is extremely blurred everywhere, but where the blur does not change much with focus, then digitally backing out the blur. I have encountered it only in research papers and experimental instruments, but it may be available off the shelf on very high end scopes now. There was a promising spurt of press releases several years ago, but all the info that I found in a quick search just now is several years old. I don't know what that means.

--Rik

g4lab
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Post by g4lab »

Here is a new offering from Leica Microsystems which is not the wavelet coding that Rik mentions above but is a new approach (Fusion Optics tm) to getting DOF and resolution at the same time. The images are different going to each eye and one has more DOF and one has more resolution.

I don't like the idea but haven't looked through one yet. I would think it might be difficult for them to match to brightness of the two sides and also it migh try to give you a headache.

But maybe it works. This is the successor company to WILD of Heerbrugg Switzerland who made the best stereoscopes ever.

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Post by rjlittlefield »

Regarding the Fusion Optics approach, I would expect a lot of variation between people in how well it works. Contact lens manufacturers have several variations of this approach that they use for handling presbyopia. If I recall correctly, there's even a lens that presents simultaneously a distance-focused image and a close-focused image, overlapped in the same eye, with the expectation that the user will learn to use the focused detail and ignore the OOF blur. I don't think I'd like it, but I guess some people do.

--Rik

NikonUser
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Post by NikonUser »

Thanks Rik. A double-edged sword: disappointed that such a scope would not give me any greater DOF/resolution on a camera than I can get now, but it saves me spending a pile of money on a new scope.

Gene: I am very happy with the DOF and resolution I'm getting wth my current stereoscope, I was just hoping to be able to capture this DOF/resolution with an attached camera.
NU.
student of entomology
Quote – Holmes on ‘Entomology’
” I suppose you are an entomologist ? “
” Not quite so ambitious as that, sir. I should like to put my eyes on the individual entitled to that name.
No man can be truly called an entomologist,
sir; the subject is too vast for any single human intelligence to grasp.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr
The Poet at the Breakfast Table.

Nikon camera, lenses and objectives
Olympus microscope and objectives

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