New beginner member from Lancaster UK

[BryceM]

Hello all,

I am a (very) mature PhD student at Lancaster. I have joined here for two reasons; firstly my interest in photography has moved ever smaller in scale - from landscapes to small spaces to closeups, and on down to now macro; and secondly my current research project has me needing to try to create 3D models of very small rock particles - 1mm and less - the hope being I can do it from macro images. I am hoping I can find my way in here :-)

Bryce

[ChrisR]

Welcome, Bryce.
What sort of rock? Are you allowed to say:D ?
Are they opaque specimens?

[BryceM]

Hi Chris,

I am looking at volcanic ash. I want to look at the structure of many particles, and although I could use the CT scanner or SEM, those methods are very expensive. If I can work out a photographic method then I may have a useful cheap alternative.

they are light grey to dark grey and very opaque.

Bryce

[Pau]

You can try with light microscopes or microscope objectives in a macro setup, but for your goal (If I understand it well) SEM is the way to go. Volcaninc ash particles can be really small, 1mm are often qualified as volcanic sand more than ash.

I would suggest you to first try looking your samples under a normal optical microscope and at a reflected light microscope if available and compare it with SEM.
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Pau