anyone ever take a photo thru a microscope? any special procedure?

tahoe98

...just wondering if it is an involved task.

messydesk

Quite easy if you have a point 'n' shoot camera. Just aim it through the eyepiece and shoot. You may have to back the camera away from the eyepiece a little to fill the frame or have the most even lighting. The autofocus will work just fine, assuming the microscope is focused in the first place. I do this all the time.

mgoodm3

As above the easy way with a point and shoot. Anything else is variably difficult.

LoveMyLiberty

I take photos thru my microscope all the time using a small Nikon Coolpix
held up to one of the eyepieces. It works great!
All you have to do is focus the area you want to image & have plenty of light
on the subject.

rhedden

Difficulty will depend on the eye relief (comfortable viewing distance) of the eyepiece. If your microscope has a tiny little eyepiece, with poor eye relief, it may be impossible to get good photos without severe vignetting (tunnel effect). If it's a big lens that allows you to comfortably put the camera up to the lens, you're probably in business.

LoveMyLiberty

Here's one.

tahoe98

<< <i>Here's one.

>>



...WOW! very impressive. my camera is a fuji-film fine-pix A-210. perhaps it will work.

mgoodm3

For putting the camera up to the microscope:

1) lower power eyepieces tend to work better.
2) zoom the camera as much as possible.
3) no need for macro mode.
4) get the camera as close to the eyepice as possible.

messydesk

<< <i>2) zoom the camera as much as possible. >>


As much as necessary, actually. My P&S loses 1.5 stops when zoomed all the way (3x zoom f2.8-f4.9), which means a slower shutter speed and higher chance of motion blur. I don't know how much the scope loses when similarly zoomed (probably more, actually), but there's probably a good compromise somewhere that will allow you to keep the shutter speeds higher. I've gotten better pics on occasion by zooming out a bit to get an extra 1/2 stop or so out of the camera and then cropping. Bumping the ISO on little P&S's raises the noise really fast unless you're fortunate enough to have a Fuji F31fd.

mgoodm3

I use the zoom mainly to prevent vignetting as much as possible (where the field of view of the camera is wider than that of the microscope - i.e. black margins around the picture). An easy way to keep the camera steady is to mount it onto a copystand and use that to position is near the microscope.

notwilight

I've done it through a telescope. IIRC, you need to set your camera focus to infinity and then experiment with the distance from the eyepiece to get the two optical systems working together. --Jerry

tahoe98

...thanks, all, for all the tips. i'll experiment and see what happens.

atarian

Heres a few ive taken with a microscope and a IPhone. It was before I addressed the lighting . But this was done with a simple phone I assume if done with a digital camera it would be as good.

mgoodm3

Taken with a Nikon P4 and a simple 4x microscope and eyepiece.