(Nikon Planapo 100x / DIC / Panasonic DMC-FX60)
Diatom ID help
Moderators: rjlittlefield, ChrisR, Chris S., Pau
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Cactusdave
- Posts: 1631
- Joined: Tue Jun 09, 2009 12:40 pm
- Location: Bromley, Kent, UK
That looks a really rich soup! I see three or four species of diatom (can't provide names I'm afraid) plus several different green algae. Once again congratulations on the quality of your high power DIC images. I get envious every time I see them. Is the light source flash or continuous illumination? I guess you've answered this before, but am I right that this is the Polish PZO DIC condenser mounted on a Zeiss Jena microscope with Nikon objective and Panasonic 'point and shoot' camera coupled directly through the eyepiece? What sort of zoom in the camera are you using?
Leitz Ortholux 1, Zeiss standard, Nikon Diaphot inverted, Canon photographic gear
outstanding quality. everytime I think it could not be better, it is... 
my FB page
I'm looking for the the extemely rare V-IM magnification changer for the E800 scope. If you have seen a listing or have one for sale please let me know.
I'm looking for the the extemely rare V-IM magnification changer for the E800 scope. If you have seen a listing or have one for sale please let me know.
Thanks,
It could be Diatoma but it also seems to be some species of Fragilaria.
Cactusdave, the light source is continuos (recently I replaced original microscope 6V 15W lamp with 5W LED diode to have more clear and natural background color). As it's not very intensive, I have to use long exposure time (1/4 -1/8 sec).
PZO DIC attachement is mounted on PZO microscope - Biolar (I know it work well also with other microscopes). Biolar is equipped with Nikon objective and coupled with Panasonic compact camera through eyepiece. I use optical zoom approx. 3x - only to fill camera frame with eyepiece field of view.
It could be Diatoma but it also seems to be some species of Fragilaria.
Cactusdave, the light source is continuos (recently I replaced original microscope 6V 15W lamp with 5W LED diode to have more clear and natural background color). As it's not very intensive, I have to use long exposure time (1/4 -1/8 sec).
PZO DIC attachement is mounted on PZO microscope - Biolar (I know it work well also with other microscopes). Biolar is equipped with Nikon objective and coupled with Panasonic compact camera through eyepiece. I use optical zoom approx. 3x - only to fill camera frame with eyepiece field of view.
Chris
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Cactusdave
- Posts: 1631
- Joined: Tue Jun 09, 2009 12:40 pm
- Location: Bromley, Kent, UK
Thanks for the information Chris. The PZO DIC condenser really does deliver excellent results at high magnification.
Which 5W LED are you using in your illuminator? Your shutter speeds seem quite fast to me. I sometimes need to use speeds of 1 sec. or more with high magnification DIC on my Diaphot with a halogen illuminator, though this does not have a really suitable condenser for this application.
I'm also surprised and impressed how noise-free your images are with a point and shoot camera, and impressed with your good white balance. What ISO do you have set and do you set a custom white balance?
Which 5W LED are you using in your illuminator? Your shutter speeds seem quite fast to me. I sometimes need to use speeds of 1 sec. or more with high magnification DIC on my Diaphot with a halogen illuminator, though this does not have a really suitable condenser for this application.
I'm also surprised and impressed how noise-free your images are with a point and shoot camera, and impressed with your good white balance. What ISO do you have set and do you set a custom white balance?
Leitz Ortholux 1, Zeiss standard, Nikon Diaphot inverted, Canon photographic gear
Cactusdave,
It's high power LED single diode 5W/3,6V. I expected more light intensivity but it's similar to standard microscope bulb 15W/6V.
In my camera I always use the lowest possible ISO - 80, higher seems not acceptable. The second thing to obtain noise-free images with this camera is using optical zoom (like I described before). It makes the smallest resolved details much bigger than noise grains of camera sensor and after scaling down original image to 1000x750 pixels, they are almost unnoticeable. It's really big difference between zoomed image and original image after crop.
It's high power LED single diode 5W/3,6V. I expected more light intensivity but it's similar to standard microscope bulb 15W/6V.
In my camera I always use the lowest possible ISO - 80, higher seems not acceptable. The second thing to obtain noise-free images with this camera is using optical zoom (like I described before). It makes the smallest resolved details much bigger than noise grains of camera sensor and after scaling down original image to 1000x750 pixels, they are almost unnoticeable. It's really big difference between zoomed image and original image after crop.
Chris
Sorry I can't help with identification but the images are great... By the way your youtube channel is exceptional. To anyone who has not seen Chris M's youtube channel here is the link.
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheMicrobio ... ture=watch
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheMicrobio ... ture=watch