Shooting the "Carpet beetle again"

[rjlittlefield]

OK, I relented and took a picture of the setup I used to shoot the unmounted carpet beetle.

Some old-timers will notice that I've disconnected the illuminator stand from the stacking unit. That resolved some worries about vibration, and also simplified tipping up the stacking unit to various angles.

Despite appearances, the system is comfortably stable in this configuration. Anyone wanting to do something similar should note that all the parts in the camera chain are fastened at multiple points several inches apart.

BTW, the chunk of glass is actually two microscope slides stuck together. They came out of the box that way, refused to come apart easily, and finally I realized the double thickness could be handy by moving the specimen farther away from the balsa surface.

--Rik

[nto]

Thanks Rik for Illustration, Moving micro using basis iron? or bellows?

[rjlittlefield]

Base iron. The handle at very top.

Steps needed for microscope objective are much too small to do with bellows.

0.0002 inches = 0.005 mm = 5 microns !

This is 1/5 of one tick mark on the dial, 100 tick marks per full turn.

--Rik

[Danny]

Excellent to see Rik and I love the lighting, excellent !!!!. Always hoping to see breathing subjects though. Another me thing I guess

All the best and great to see the setups. Never stop with these ideas, please. We need a place in the articles for ALL these setups in here. Its a wealth of information Rik.

Danny.

[augusthouse]

Thanks for that Rik,
It clearly demonstrates just how adaptable your setup is and opens up all sorts of other options (not that you aren't aware of them), ie, you could slide your microscope in under the bellows for photomicrography. There is also the option for integrating elaborate back-lighting methods with regard to the stage area for photomacrography; or tip it up into horizontal mode when necessary or preferred.

I like it!!

Did you mark the additional 'tick marks' on the dial by shallow engraving or with a surface method?

Craig

[rjlittlefield]

Always hoping to see breathing subjects though.

Me too. But I haven't figured out how to pull that off except for a very few subjects -- eggs, of course, and pupae, and some caterpillars, and a moth or two, one very cooperative spider, some anaesthetized critters, and so on.

If I ever do figure out how to do it in general, rest assured that you'll hear about it --- right after the patent is filed and the product sales sheets are ready!

Did you mark the additional 'tick marks' on the dial by shallow engraving or with a surface method?

Neither. The dials come engraved at 100 ticks per full turn. In an earlier version, I carefully made a vernier scale on paper and taped it next to the dial. In theory, that would let me read to 1/10 of an existing tick mark. In practice, the added scale was more trouble than it was worth, because I could not reliably make movements fine enough to justify it. Now I just eyeball 1/5 of a tick or whatever I need. The uncertainty in reading the dial is comparable to variability in making the movements. For a 10X NA 0.30 objective, microscopyu calculates a DOF of about 7.5 microns. Using a nominal step size of 5 microns seems to work out OK -- no doubt I end up shooting more frames than I need, but it's not hugely more, and I don't have any trouble with missing frames.

--Rik

[acerola]

Rik, How can you fix the microscope objective on a bellows? They all (?) have RMS thread as I think. Any idea? (apart from making a hole on a body cap )

[Charles Krebs]

Péter,

Here's one way:

http://www.edmundoptics.com/onlinecatal ... uctID=1968

[acerola]

Thanks Charles, I ordered it.