Playing with polarizers and wave plates
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Charles Krebs
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Playing with polarizers and wave plates
The pyrenoid bodies in euglena (where paramylon granules are stored) can really be made to visually "stand out" in this way. Here I've taken a few shots and showed the way they were recorded (with a strong red.magenta overall color cast). Then made a version where much of the red/magenta was removed in Photoshop. And as Marek has so beautifully shown us, desmids can really put on a color show with crossed polarizers and wave plates.
Nice photos Charlie! Its rare that you post something with wild colors like this. You've said a few times you prefer more natural colors.
Ecki, where did you find that? I've only seen a few photos produced by them. I think there were a few on an Olympus Bioscapes competition one year. It had some wild interference colors. I'm insanely jealous. Can't wait to see you post some photos of the toy and its images.Ecki wrote::
Wait until I have a camera adoption on my new Jamin-Lebedeff toy!
Re: Playing with polarizers and wave plates
A 1/4 wave plate will produce more natural colors while showing most of the cross pol character.Charles Krebs wrote: Then made a version where much of the red/magenta was removed in Photoshop.
(I really don't like the magenta backgrounds but many people do)
Pau
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Wim van Egmond
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A very nice solution. I also prefer less disco colours and the removing of the pink is very clever.
It is easy to make the corssed polars yourself. 3D glasses can be a source for the polar filters. If you place one filter under the condenser and one above the objective you have the corssed polars. As a wave plate you can use a piece of plastic.
But glass polar filters are of course best.
Wim
It is easy to make the corssed polars yourself. 3D glasses can be a source for the polar filters. If you place one filter under the condenser and one above the objective you have the corssed polars. As a wave plate you can use a piece of plastic.
But glass polar filters are of course best.
Wim
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RogelioMoreno
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Charles Krebs
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- Location: Issaquah, WA USA
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Mr.Stone,
Crossed polarization (and the addition of "retardation" plates to jazz up the colors if desired) is not a complicated, or necessarily expensive, method of illumination to set-up. About the only tricky part is, on certain stands, determining the best implementation and location for the upper polarizer (analyzer).wish i had a microscope setup that is able to do this.
Thank you charles. And Sorry for the late reply.
I have been reading a lot on microscopy in the past two weeks, and i have finally got a power supply for the wild m20, and i must say, every time i sit down with a new slide my eyes pop out of my head and i am amazed at just how much life is in a drop of water
Im hooked!
The wild i have is set up for phase contrast, and things look really good through it, took me a while to set up the phase but i got it right at some point.
This past weekend i took the wild apart and cleaned all the bits and greased it too and things are alot smoother.
I tried to use polarized light with the phase, but i doubt i did it right.
I saw a post on the forum that one can use the lenses on 3d glasses for this, so i got a couple and chopped them up then placed one lens on a filter holder that the wild has, and then the other in-between the objective and the eyepieces, the effect that it gave was mostly dark red, with some strands of algae emitting a very bright neon like light. Something tells me that phase and polarized light does not mix. Any advice here?
But there was a loss of detail, i think this is due to the slight curve that the plastic lens has, and those lenses arent of the highest quality so one could expect some loss of detail.
I have also been looking at your photo setup on your website and want to try taking pictures.
I took some pictures last week, but the way i set things up is shaky, and the pictures aren’t sharp.
If i use a flash, there is a loss of the phase contrast effect, but i did place the flash underneath the condenser, and looking at your setup i see u placed the flash tube where the light source used to be.
Could the loss of the effect be caused by the (Flash)light not passing through the first diaphragm? Is there some way around this?
The design of the wild would make it hard to use the flash in a similar way that you do in your setup.
I would also like to try the Varel contrast method but im not sure how to go about it.
When you refer to a retardation plate, is this the birefringent prisms?
I have been reading a lot on microscopy in the past two weeks, and i have finally got a power supply for the wild m20, and i must say, every time i sit down with a new slide my eyes pop out of my head and i am amazed at just how much life is in a drop of water
Im hooked!
The wild i have is set up for phase contrast, and things look really good through it, took me a while to set up the phase but i got it right at some point.
This past weekend i took the wild apart and cleaned all the bits and greased it too and things are alot smoother.
I tried to use polarized light with the phase, but i doubt i did it right.
I saw a post on the forum that one can use the lenses on 3d glasses for this, so i got a couple and chopped them up then placed one lens on a filter holder that the wild has, and then the other in-between the objective and the eyepieces, the effect that it gave was mostly dark red, with some strands of algae emitting a very bright neon like light. Something tells me that phase and polarized light does not mix. Any advice here?
But there was a loss of detail, i think this is due to the slight curve that the plastic lens has, and those lenses arent of the highest quality so one could expect some loss of detail.
I have also been looking at your photo setup on your website and want to try taking pictures.
I took some pictures last week, but the way i set things up is shaky, and the pictures aren’t sharp.
If i use a flash, there is a loss of the phase contrast effect, but i did place the flash underneath the condenser, and looking at your setup i see u placed the flash tube where the light source used to be.
Could the loss of the effect be caused by the (Flash)light not passing through the first diaphragm? Is there some way around this?
The design of the wild would make it hard to use the flash in a similar way that you do in your setup.
I would also like to try the Varel contrast method but im not sure how to go about it.
When you refer to a retardation plate, is this the birefringent prisms?