Non-biting midge

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Sun Jan 08, 2012 12:55 am

Quite a "hatch" of these around here the past few days. The top image is a male, lower is a female (it's hard to get a good look at the impressive eyes on a male from this vantage point due to the feathery antenna).

Olympus UMPlanFL 5/0.15 infinity objective with Nikon tube lens

Nikon 20/0.40 CF M Plan ELWD

Jacek · Post by **Jacek** » Sun Jan 08, 2012 3:27 am

Great pictures !

arturoag75 · Post by **arturoag75** » Sun Jan 08, 2012 3:44 am

impressive Charlie!

Mitch640 · Post by **Mitch640** » Sun Jan 08, 2012 4:08 am

Beautiful. NASA could save a lot of money looking for aliens. They are already here among us.

RogelioMoreno · Post by **RogelioMoreno** » Thu Jan 12, 2012 5:06 am

Charles,

The first one is amazing!

I would like to know more about the lighting setup.

Rogelio

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Fri Jan 13, 2012 11:16 am

Rogelio

I would like to know more about the lighting setup.

Extremely simple. A cylinder of Lee diffusion material taped around the objective barrel and extending forward so that it essentially surrounded the subject. Two of the Ikea LED lights are maneuvered around various positions and distances outside the cylinder while watching the live-view image until I get a lighting effect I like.

The background is a piece of colored paper about 5 or 6 inches behind the subject. It is easy to change its color and intensity by controlling the light hitting that paper.

(I'm slowly piecing together a microscope for the infinity objectives that is very similar to the one put together for the 210mm finite Nikon M Plans that was shown here. I like it for low/modest magnification shots of opaque subject like this since it permits very good access to the subject for lighting and backgrounds).

RogelioMoreno · Post by **RogelioMoreno** » Fri Jan 13, 2012 1:26 pm

Charles,

Thank you very much for the details.

Rogelio

Planapo · Post by **Planapo** » Fri Jan 13, 2012 3:47 pm

Great! I like the background colour you've chosen, which gives picture no. 1 that almost monochrome appearance reminding me of those black-and-white sci-fi movies like "Formicula" with giant insects threatening mankind.

Do you like and leave the spectrum that the Ikea LEDs give as it is, or are their any nifty tricks involved while post-processing to eliminate an unwanted tint?

--Betty

BTW, for those of you who could need some (more) of these lamps: I happen to have just today been at our Ikea market which is only a stroll down the road, and saw that during their "Knut" sale the Jansjös sell for just 6.99 there at the moment.

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Fri Jan 13, 2012 5:15 pm

Betty,

I am aware of the spectrum "deficiencies" of most LED lights (at least as seen on a spectral graph of the output). But these little Ikea lights are so nice and easy to use I must confess not looking at this issue too closely lest I see something that really troubles me!

I'll do a custom white balance (although the "tungsten" preset works OK as well). I always tweak color in Photoshop if it is not to my liking, but they do not seem to require anything extraordinary in that regard. Without any side-by-side comparisons to tungsten halogen or flash, I am satisfied with the color rendition for the insect subjects I have used it with. I suppose if I were to work with subjects that required highly accurate color renditions throughout a wider range of colors I would need to study the issue more closely.

Doc.Al · Post by **Doc.Al** » Thu Jul 12, 2012 4:55 am

Hi Charles,

Sorry for my ignorance, but what is a "Nikon tube lens".

I have just received an Olympus UMPlanFl 5x as part of a group of items, and would like to connect this to my DSLR. I have not tried this type of photography before, and so do not know what I might need.

Please feel free to move this post if it is not appropriate here.

Thank you

Alex

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Thu Jul 12, 2012 11:16 am

Alex,

In general, the term "tube lens" refers to a secondary lens that is used behind the newer "infinity" type objectives to complete the task of image formation. The objective essentially turns a small subject close up into a virtual image at infinity, and then the tube lens focuses the virtual image from infinity to form a real image on the camera sensor or at the microscope's eyepiece. See our FAQ: How can I hook a microscope objective to my camera? for more discussion.

When Charles says "Nikon tube lens", I believe he means the specific tube lens made by Nikon for use with their infinity objectives. That tube lens can be purchased as a separate item, most conveniently as an Accessory to the Nikon objectives sold by Edmund Optics. There's nothing magic about the Nikon tube lens; in particular it does not perform any special corrections for chromatic aberration. An ordinary telephoto can be used instead, as described in the FAQ. The significance of Nikon tube lens in this thread is that it indicates the Olympus objective gives good results with a tube lens that does not have special corrections. I take this to mean that it would work well with an ordinary telephoto also, as in the FAQ.

--Rik

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Thu Jul 12, 2012 1:18 pm

Rik is a correct. This refers specifically to the Nikon made 200mm "tube lens" (Nikon often call it the "secondary objective lens" when discussing infinity optical systems). You can see it here in a Nikon diagram:

As Rik mentioned, its function can also be performed by a camera lens of about 200mm focal length. For most people that is a more convenient way of setting up. But if you are already using various bellows, tubes and other apparatus for a "tabletop" setup, then optics like this can often be nicely incorporated into a piece of equipment you like to use.

You can see how I use this Nikon lens in the first picture of this post:
http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... hp?t=12483

Doc.Al · Post by **Doc.Al** » Thu Jul 12, 2012 2:28 pm

Thank you Rik and Charles for your reply.

I have a reasonable understanding of microscopical imaging, but have not extended this as far as mounting an objective on my DSLR.
I have been collecting a few suitable objective candidates with this aim, when I came across the UMPlanFl 5X. I assumed that the UM meant an infinity industrial lens which would give a reasonable working distance and a good magnification for macro/micro photography. It looked like the best candidate from my collection (most of which are finite objectives). I appreciate that some sort of intermediate lens would be required to take the "infinity" light path generated by this objective and focus it onto the DSLR sensor and just wanted to know what you used for this purpose.

I will look at the lens tube from Edmunds Optics.

Thanks

Alex