Magnifying images to fit format

[flynet]

This is a continuation of the cranefly topic.
I finally got the slipping fine focus fixed by the supplier. I also deduced that the 'jumping’ during focussing for a stack was not caused by this slipping, but by me being too quick in snapping, before the camera had finished processing each shot!

I now have a problem with the subject being slightly too big for the format. I am using X100 (X10 eyepiece and X10 objective). Some subjects are slightly too big to fit in the frame as here. In the photos posted, one is a shot taken of half the subject (which is symetrical along a vertical lin). The second is this half edited in a desktop editing programme, one half flipped, and the two halves comlbined and saved as one picture. The third is a shot with the subject moved to one side, the picture later cropped to be like picture 1. This editing takes a long time.

I only have objective lenses of X 4 and X10 whiich seems to be standard with new microscopes. If I use the X4 the picture is very small and does not show the details well when enlarged.

There seems to be no way of enlarging view with live shooting, except to about X500. Perhaps I need an objective lens of 6 0r 7, if they are available? A pity that drawtubes are not used nowadays.

The picture is of part of the genitalia of a species of fly, ceral plate and surstyli (Anthomyiidae genus Delia).

[flynet]

Unfortunately the photos arrived in the wrong order.

They are:
1. Full width of frame, setae cut off as image too large
2. Composite photo made with desktop publishing programme, made from either 1. or 3.
3. As 1 but divided down middle by edge of frame.

[NikonUser]

Perhaps a 7x eyepiece (if they exist) with the 10x objective.

[rjlittlefield]

I only have objective lenses of X 4 and X10 whiich seems to be standard with new microscopes. If I use the X4 the picture is very small and does not show the details well when enlarged.

There seems to be no way of enlarging view with live shooting, except to about X500. Perhaps I need an objective lens of 6 or 7, if they are available?

6X objectives can be found regularly on eBay, 7X occasionally.

Other approaches are:

1. Use a higher quality 4X objective with a larger NA (numerical aperture). The typical 4X achromat is NA 0.10, but you can get for example 4X NA 0.14 . These are substantially more expensive, but will produce a sharper image that can tolerate more enlargement.

2. Shoot the subject twice with different framings, and stitch the results side-by-side as if they were a panorama. This is the most common approach, both because it does not require different objectives and because it gives a sharper final image.

--Rik

[flynet]

Thanks for the replies.

Nikon User: Unfortunately the camera/microscope attachment contains the 'eye-piece' lenses, which are fixed and only available as X10. The usual eyepieces are removed to allow the attachment tube to fit in the microscope.
I will search for a X6-7 objective.

Rik: The second photo is made from two shots of the symmetrical genitalia, cropped along the central vertical axis. One photo is flipped, and the two halves joined and saved as one image. This I think is equivalent to your panoramic suggestion. This might be a solution if the object is not symmetrical, and I will have to find out how to do it!

So far all the other parts of the genital complex in Anthomyiidae are somewhat smaller than the symmetrical parts (cerci and surstyli, sternites 4 and 5, distiphallus, gonites etc, and so fit into the frame (is this the correct term for the rectangular space visible?).

I will send later an enlarged shot of the distiphallus. All the species in this species group of Delia have diagnostic characters of importance. My wife is calling for me to make the coffee! I appreciate the help I receive on this excellent forum. Nikon User, your entomological photos are really excellent, I don't think I have the equipment to take such shots.

[flynet]

Two species of Delia (Diptera:Anthomyiidae), lateral views of the distiphallus.
Photos shot at X100 of the whole aedeagal complex, distiphallus cropped. Length of distiphallus 0.3 mm

[Rylee Isitt]

flynet,

What editing software do you have? What Rik is suggesting is as follows:

1) Take photo of left side
2) Take a completely separate photo of right side that overlaps previous image a bit, so that some of the same structures are visible in both photos
3) Bring both photos into something like photoshop, which has a magical feature called auto-align layers (see near the end of that page). The end result is a single image of greater size that takes pieces from both of your separate photos and merges them together.

This is very different from just mirroring along a symmetrical axis because it actually gives you the true view... you will seldom find truly symmetrical things, so mirroring them across an axis definitely changes the image and (in my opinion) makes it less realistic.

Note that you do not have to stop at photographing left and right sides. If your subject is really big, you can photograph the top left, top right, bottom left, bottom right.... or even more pieces.

Basically split your specimen up with imaginary lines and take separate, overlapping photos of the different pieces, then use software to turn them into a single image.

It works wonderfully with slides because movement is just in the x and y directions... the merge process generates an excellent result with no visible seams. And it gets you a larger/higher resolution image to boot. In fact it might sometimes be worth photographing a subject with a more powerful objective than necessary in order to do this... if you want ultra-fine detail.

[flynet]

Rik: Thanks for suggesting the panorama solution.

Rylee Issit: I am using PSER12. I fathomed it out last night from the manual, and it works like magic! Your instructions are very clear, you should take up manual writing.

[/quote]It works wonderfully with slides because movement is just in the x and y directions... the merge process generates an excellent result with no visible seams. And it gets you a larger/higher resolution image to boot. In fact it might sometimes be worth photographing a subject with a more powerful objective than necessary in order to do this... if you want ultra-fine detail.

This is a really interesting idea. I shall be trying it pretty soon. I haven't yet worked out how to get the quote on a white background, perhaps this will come out correctly.

[rjlittlefield]

I haven't yet worked out how to get the quote on a white background, perhaps this will come out correctly.

At the moment, you have the

and [/quote] tags reversed. The one with the slash needs to come at the end of the quote, not the beginning.

By the way, you should see an "edit" button at the top right of your own posts. You can always edit your posts to fix problems like this. Often an edited post will show a note from the forum saying that it has been edited, so it's a good idea to include a note of your own saying what the edit was. I'll illustrate with this one.

--Rik

Edit: to fix a typo.

[rjlittlefield]

This posting is just to force a forum note, when I edit my earlier post.

(Posts that are edited before any other replies are posted will not show the forum note about the edit. This is handy because it allows for rapid correction of typos without cluttering up the forum with "Last edited by" notes. It just means that to illustrate, I need to jump through this extra hoop.)

--Rik

Edit: to add further explanation.

[flynet]

After a lot of studying of microscope controls, focussing, preparation of material I think my recent photos are improving.

The shots are of the genitalia of Pegomya rufina (Fall.) In earlier photos in this thread I left out the epandrial setae, and stopped the stacking before I reached it. My idea was to make the details of the cercal plate and cerci clearer, as the epandrial setae are not important taxonomically. Here I have focussed right down to these setae. Unfortunately one can't dissect away the epandrium, as the surstyli and cercal plate fall apart!

I certainly found a lot about lighting, aperture etc on this site, and some helpful videos on the web about microscope controls.The second photo is the fifth sternite. This was damaged on the left lobe, so I cropped it to show only the right lobe, flipped this and edited the two halves together. Unfortunately PSE12 won't make a panoramic photo using a flipped photo, so I had to do this in another programme.