Hi Abel,
Just beautiful!
A question about your background color. How do you get the very dark grey? Do you use the UDCB condenser, or the UDC8 condenser with the lambda plate on your BX-51, or are you doing it in post processing? A search indicates some folks, including Charlie, do it in post at least part of the time, but I'm not familiar with their DIC setups and I know there are differences. Some have retarders and some don't.
I have a BX-50 and the older DICT slider and UDCB condenser without the lambda plate and can't get beyond light blue without post processing. I have some polariziing and full wave retarder film on order from Edmund Optics to make a compensator (polarizer, full wave retarder, Nomarski prism, bottom to top), to bypass the straight polarizer on my condenser. That's what I understand the UDC8 condenser has. I'm getting quarter and half wave film to play with too.
The manual for the UCD8 indicates I should be able to get grey without the lambda (full wave) plate but it just isn't happening with the UCDB.
Most of the time I prefer the light grey to dark grey background, but I can't get it directly. Am I on the right track adding the retarder or am I as clueless as I fear?
Every time I try to understand the finer points of optical physics pertaining to polarization, retardation and DIC, my poor eyes glaze over...
Thanks.
Tom