Sold - Thanks Michael.

I have an older B & L DynaZoom flat field microscope with a photo port for sale. It's in good to fair condition, missing one eyepiece. It has 4x, 10x, 20x, and 40x objectives, and illuminator power supply. Some of the black paint is peeling and it's a bit dirty. It appears to have come out of a Koda...

Thanks for the link Rik, Area magnification??? Sounds like a marketing ploy, 1x- 5x sounds more impressive than 1x - 2x. It's just the square of the linear magnification. I've never heard of magnification described this way. Isn't magnification always implied to be linear? Just the same, the unit is...

Hello folks, This past summer I picked up a Spirotone Bello-Dupliscope on Craig's list and plan on giving is a try for snow crystal photography. It has a scale that says it is adjustable from 1x - 5x, yet when I measure the actual magnification by taking a picture of a millimeter scale I measure onl...

Hi Craig, The objective doesn't have the usual focal length inscribed on the barrel, it has just "Flat Field, 2.5x, 0.06N.A., 0.18 Cover Glass, Bausch and Lomb". It's a for a B&L Balplan scope, which I don't have. I did get access to an earlier made B&L Dynoptic microscope and tried the objective in...

Hello, I made a mistake and purchased a couple of Balplan flat field objectives only to find out later they won't work on my 160mm finite length microscope. Can any one give me an idea of what I could use as a tube lens for these objectives? I have a RMS thread cone adapter and some extensions tubes...

Hi Rik, These are great images. I'm fascinated with all the different variety of snow crystals that form. Each snow fall is different and the type of crystal falling can vary from one minute to the next. The hex plates are the easiest to photograph because they are very flat, compared to the hex col...

This thread reminded me of something that I don't think got said, in a not too long ago thread, on darkfield for larger sized objects. The condensor you are probably using is likely a variant of the Abbe condensor. Even if it isn't, better ones work the same way. That is, they all have very short f...

Yes, this is vignetting. That black border is basically a shadow. It's caused by something mechanical that intrudes between the objective and the sensor. You can probably figure out what that is by just removing the camera and looking down at the objective along the same light of sight that the sen...

Hi Rik, The link below shows a sample image right out of the camera, I'd like to be able to use more of the camera sensor. Is this considered vignetting? Any suggestions on what I could try? Thanks -Nick http://www.flickr.com/photos/46796256@N05/6728596613/ This shows the microscope I'm using. http:...

Thanks all for the replies, David - Sorry your weather isn't better, maybe if you are ever up in the mountains in a snow storm, for a few days, with your camera and microscope and...... Never mind just enjoy the weather you have. Rik- I'm OK with the image quality, it must be vignetting. I would lik...

Hello folks, I'm using an old AO Spencer microscope to take pictures of snow flakes using a 4x Lomo objective. The scope has a condenser but I wanted to improve my dark field shots. I finally figured out the best way to do this. The shots below are the best I've managed to date (shots taken last wee...

Thank you psneeley, I will have to keep and eye open on E-bay to see if I can find one. I'm only really interested in low power work currently so maybe just using a field stop in the 1.25NA condenser and removing the top element of it is all I need. But it's good to know AO Spencer made one, thanks ...

Hi Dave, I'm using an old collage microscope (1942 AO Spenser) I've replaced one of the objectives with a 4x LOMO, .12 NA plan achromat. I don't use the eyepiece on the microscope, that is removed and the my camera is coupled to the microscope where the eyepiece would be. The microscope is left out ...

Thanks Gerd,

Mother nature does most of the work