First steps with the Mitutoyo 5x

[FotoChris]

I recently acquired a Mitutoyo 5x as well as both a DCR-150 and 250 (though I've not yet used the DCR-250) and I'm slowly making progress.
The first shots were mostly to figure out stuff like orientation, distances - or rather to re-examine the information I got from sources like Allan Walls or Robert O'Tooles website and they were pretty much spot on.

Now I'm working on figuring out the rest like building a lens hood with filter thread for the Mitu, creating a baffle to suppress the 'ring' that is caused by the internal reflections of the Raynox elements and its shiny tube, figuring out the best steps for focus stacking etc.

My first images were of microscope slides I've made - however these were poorly made with PVC glue as a mounting medium and a lot of bubbles and using a cheap LED light source. Still, the results were quite promising even though I had not used the proper spacing. Feel free to look at the images at a high resolution by opening them in a new window.
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Then I used a flash light source but the spacing was still too small so edge performance wasn't quite as high and the Raynox reflections caused some subtle halos and the black areas weren't quite as contrasty:
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Now with the proper spacing, a baffle for the Raynox and correct step size things start to look much better:
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However as you may have noticed the legs parts of the head and the antenna is mirrored on both sides - that's because I didn't have a microscope or magnifying glass to "mount" the beetle (which was 3mm long) and the upper left side was very much covered in glue an unusable. But within the next few days I'll get a stereo microscope and I'll be able to properly prepare my specimens.
I've also finished building a custom lens hood with a 39mm filter thread and internal flocking and equipped it with a circular polariser.
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[rjlittlefield]

These images look excellent, even if you were not just getting started with this hardware. Nicely done!

For baffling the Raynox, the simplest solution is to cut a ring of black paper, large enough for the outside to be retained by your normal mounting rings, with a hole that is small enough to hide the inside surfaces of the Raynox.

For a shiny tube, flocking is the standard solution. Some people use Protostar. I usually use flocked cardstock because it is simpler to work with for non-permanent setups.

I am intrigued by your comment about "PVC glue as a mounting medium". Can you say more about the material and how to use it?

--Rik

[FotoChris]

Thank you, Rick - coming from you that's a big compliment! (Of course I know who you are!)

That paper-ring is exactly what I did, first I thought about getting an adjustable aperture ring and put it somewhere in between the Mitu and tube lens - but the paper ring method really was really the easiest solution.

I wasn't able to find Protostar but found a very similar self-adhesive fabric which is really great - only downside is that it has a lot of lose fibres so I need to vacuum the surfaces after applying. Other than that's it's really fantastic! The lens hood was surprisingly simple to make, all I needed was a tube with an inner diameter between 35-37mm which I cut to size, sprayed matt black, flocked the inside and press-fitted a 37-39mm filter adapter ring.

Regarding the PVC mounting medium: get some transparent PVC glue like Elmers and thin it with a little bit of water to get it a bit more liquid (approx 9:1 ratio), mix it well and let it settle and let the bubbles escape. Then you can use it as a mounting medium. Personally I like to add a bit of dishwasher liquid to further reduce the chance of trapping bubbles - which works rather well. The biggest difference when compared to a popular mounting medium like Euparal is that it won't brighten/bleach the specimen, is has no preservatives or solvent, it's much cheaper and it's water soluble - so if you want to re-do a slide you can simply put it in water and the glue will dissolve and your specimens can be wet when mounting.
However you have to make sure that there's no alcohol present otherwise it will cloud when drying.

I've used it for tiny beetles, flies, spiders, water insects (wet) and the results have been quite good!
However it's certainly not a professional method and far more useful for hobbyists and probably best for temporary mounts that will last for a few weeks/months.

[rjlittlefield]

Aha -- Elmer's Clear glue. Brilliant! I've used white glues for years, but somehow the transparent stuff had escaped my attention. (It's PVA, by the way. PVC is different stuff.)

There is some discussion of variations at https://www.microbehunter.com/microscop ... hp?t=12133 . PVA+glycerin seems to be much loved.

--Rik

[FotoChris]

Oh yes, hahaha, PVA! Sorry, I have no idea why I keep saying PVC, you're absolutely right!!

I'm actually in the same forum at Microbehunter, he (Oliver) gave me the idea for PVA glue during a livestream - though mixing it with glycerin sounds very interesting, I had not thought of that!

On a sidenote: the AmScope Stereo Microscope was a bust. Bought it through AmScope Global and they sent me a generic no-name Chinese scope that looks similar but is pretty bad. Oh well... maybe I don't really need one, perhaps a good desk magnifier or loupe will suffice and give me fewer headaches.

[JayMcClellan]

On a sidenote: the AmScope Stereo Microscope was a bust. Bought it through AmScope Global and they sent me a generic no-name Chinese scope that looks similar but is pretty bad. Oh well... maybe I don't really need one, perhaps a good desk magnifier or loupe will suffice and give me fewer headaches.

Sorry to hear that about your AmScope stereo being disappointing. I've actually been pleasantly surprised with the one I got recently from amscope.com, model SM-4TPZ-B. I caught a sale so it was only $528 and I feel it was worth it. It's described as 3.5-90X, which includes 0.5X and 2X Barlow lenses so the base unit is 7-45X, or 0.7-4.5X not counting the 10X eyepieces. I was expecting the image quality to be mediocre at best and just hoped it would be good enough for cleaning bugs, but really I can't fault it except at the high end of magnification where unsurprisingly there's significant CA but even then it's quite usable. Even the trinocular photo port works reasonably well, once I ditched the AmScope camera adapter and just used an empty tube, since my MFT sensor is about the right size for the FOV. I'm sure there's a lot of variation from one model to the next, and from one unit to the next, but it's also very possible something in yours got knocked out of whack during shipping. Also in my experience with cheap Chinese stuff, sometimes it arrives with a LOT of crud inside so maybe cleaning would help.

Just to give you an idea of what I'm seeing with my AmScope, here's a quick and (literally) dirty focus stack I did just now at 2X with my GH5 on the camera port. This is straight from the camera to Helicon to you, no sharpening or retouching etc. The first is full FOV and the second is a 1024x1024 crop near the center. It's nothing to compare with your Mitutoyo 5X (!) or even my Laowa 2.5-5X, but the image quality is better than I expected from a scope at this price point.

[FotoChris]

On a sidenote: the AmScope Stereo Microscope was a bust. Bought it through AmScope Global and they sent me a generic no-name Chinese scope that looks similar but is pretty bad. Oh well... maybe I don't really need one, perhaps a good desk magnifier or loupe will suffice and give me fewer headaches.

Sorry to hear that about your AmScope stereo being disappointing. I've actually been pleasantly surprised with the one I got recently from amscope.com, model SM-4TPZ-B. I caught a sale so it was only $528 and I feel it was worth it. It's described as 3.5-90X, which includes 0.5X and 2X Barlow lenses so the base unit is 7-45X, or 0.7-4.5X not counting the 10X eyepieces. I was expecting the image quality to be mediocre at best and just hoped it would be good enough for cleaning bugs, but really I can't fault it except at the high end of magnification where unsurprisingly there's significant CA but even then it's quite usable. Even the trinocular photo port works reasonably well, once I ditched the AmScope camera adapter and just used an empty tube, since my MFT sensor is about the right size for the FOV. I'm sure there's a lot of variation from one model to the next, and from one unit to the next, but it's also very possible something in yours got knocked out of whack during shipping. Also in my experience with cheap Chinese stuff, sometimes it arrives with a LOT of crud inside so maybe cleaning would help.

Just to give you an idea of what I'm seeing with my AmScope, here's a quick and (literally) dirty focus stack I did just now at 2X with my GH5 on the camera port. This is straight from the camera to Helicon to you, no sharpening or retouching etc. The first is full FOV and the second is a 1024x1024 crop near the center. It's nothing to compare with your Mitutoyo 5X (!) or even my Laowa 2.5-5X, but the image quality is better than I expected from a scope at this price point.

Thank you for sharing those photos and your experience with the AmScope!!

I ended up getting a difference stereo scope, even though the design is very similar (it's probably made in the same Chinese factory lol) the overall quality-price ratio was much better and it's clean and there are no weird noises when focussing or zooming. Same zoom range, similar eyepieces,...
It's a stereoscope with a bino-head (so no phototube which I don't need anyway) and has a rather heavy base with no clips for slides and no light - but it was only 320€ including shipping, so that's absolutely fine for my needs. I only added a ring light and one of these days I'll get a 0.7x or 0.5x too - I tried to get by without one but larger bugs are simply too big otherwise.

[Lou Jost]

The last beetle is especially nice. Congratulations on the progress!