I am experimenting with my PZO Biolar and the K3Ph condenser and PhS objective (accessory kit) I have. Does anyone have direct experience with the PZO phase setups and this arrangement, meaning PhS? Just looking for some explanations if there are any to give. Since I am a novice I have no experience with this particular setup. Yes I have done some searching and read several articles but most are out of my understanding. I know this is phase because of the halos surrounding the diatoms, the false colors, and the circle artifacts outside of the focal plane. To me it looks more like my PZO Anoptral phase contrast setup. The stock PZO bulb lamp was used with the first image below. It was extremely difficult to get the illumination correct without seeing the filament in the background so I put a diffuser on top of the field lens. It's just a one shot image, no stacking.
The image below was shot with the same setup but using the LED illumination in place of the stock PZO bulb illuminator. I still had the same problem, meaning seeing the LED in the background. The illumination was turned way down with nearly dark background. Obviously I've cleaned up the background in Photoshop. This is a stacked image, 100 images in Zerene.
Oh, the next image is what it looked like through the eyepiece using the LED illuminator and shot with my smartphone. You can see the halos surrounding the diatom, the false colors and the circle artifacts.
Am I on track?
-JW:
