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DIY microscope lenses on BMD pocket 6K camera
- LeifCarrotson 6y agoThe focus stacking technique was news to me. I've been doing some macro photography of PCB components with an extension tube, but the depth of field is just so shallow that it's hard to see what you're doing. You can't read the text on top of an IC and see sharp solder joints on the bottom at the same time. But if you put it on a threaded rod, move the camera, and take the in-focus parts from a bunch of pictures, you can see the front and back of the fly at the same time. How cool!
- sudosysgen 6y agoOn my hacked Sony camera, you can program the camera to change focus and take a picture each time in rapid succession, no need for anything more than a tripod :)
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- throwanem 6y agoThere's a device called the Helicon FB Tube [1] which comes in Canon and Nikon variants, and purports to do this with any camera and lens pair it supports. I've thought about trying one out - it's not that expensive compared to most camera things, but I'd want it for shooting handheld, and I'm not sure how well it'd play with either the recycle rate on my flashes or the movement rate of the insects I shoot this way. Probably not well with either, but for still stuff I guess it's probably still cheaper than a driven macro rail... [1] https://www.heliconsoft.com/heliconsoft-products/helicon-fb-tube/ https://www.heliconsoft.com/heliconsoft-products/helicon-fb-...
- sudosysgen 6y agoFor Canon, wouldn't it be possible to also do it in software with Magic Lantern?
- throwanem 6y agoApparently! I don't have any Canon gear and I'm not sure I'd reflash it if I did, although if their software is as unergonomic as I've found their hardware to be, I might - that said, while I can't try it out for myself, a bit of searching does turn up any number of howtos on the subject.
- namibj 6y agoYes, even the old CHDK did that job nicely on my old IXUS 100 IS. A script for this (and adaptive exposure stacking, very useful for unlit roman interiors when you're looking out a window with bright sunlight) came with the download back then. And at least for CHDK, there wasn't actually any flashing. It just used the firmware flashing mode as a bootloader.
- AuryGlenz 6y agoThe newer Nikon cameras have it built in as well.
- TaylorAlexander 6y agoJeff Geerling just uploaded a tutorial video on focus stacking if you want to check it out! https://youtu.be/pinYVZxBF2Q https://youtu.be/pinYVZxBF2Q
- amelius 6y agoIf you're photographing stills (like PCB components) then you might as well use a smaller aperture and increase the exposure time to get an image that is globally in focus.
- devb 6y agoThis only works up to a point before diffraction sets in and the picture quality starts to very noticeably suffer, and comes nowhere close to the depth of field acquired with focus stacking. In fact, with stacking, the lens should be stopped down to the best f-stop anyway (f/8-11).
- namibj 6y agoGood (Vis/NIR) microscope optics go up to f/0.56 (NA 0.9) without oil immersion. Granted, such an objective will cost you 3.5k$ [0], but they don't go to these lengths without expecting near-diffraction-limited performance. [0]: https://www.thorlabs.com/thorproduct.cfm?partnumber=RMS60X-PFC https://www.thorlabs.com/thorproduct.cfm?partnumber=RMS60X-P...
- LegitShady 6y agowith very wide apertures and magnification the depth of field may still be too narrow, and longer imaging time (if not focus stacking) would just make the image brighter not more in focus. Taking multiple shots with different depth of field and stacking them would work.
- m463 6y agoand then stack those images. :)
- modeless 6y agoThat's pretty cool. Maybe this would actually be a good use for the failed Lytro cameras. Changing focus after the shot is taken was always a parlor trick with little use in regular photography, but for microscopy it could be game changing. Has anyone tried microscopy with a Lytro Illum? Seems like you can still buy them used.
- mokus 6y agoA lab I used to work at had a light field microscope system. Sorry, though, its existence is pretty much all I know about it since I never personally got to use it.
- dylan604 6y agoother than for the lulz of "i shot photos with a video camera", this would have been so much easier with a mirrorless or DSLR. why record 160 frames to just export 1 frame. also easier to get >6K images as well. sometimes, the "just because" really just makes me shake my head. I love the 3D printing of an adapater and playing with lenses in ways never envisioned by the vendors. after going through all of that hassle, to just tack on the hassle of exporting stills from video sequences is just odd.
- GordonS 6y agoI've never done macro photography before, so this might be a silly question - but could you really get shots like this from a single DSLR image? Most macro photos I see have some part of the image in razor sharp focus, then a strong bokeh effect for the rest.
- mhb 6y agoNot from a single image. The reason for the set up is to obtain many images at different focal distances. That can be done by either moving the camera (of any kind) or by changing the focus for each image.
- dylan604 6y agoTypically, it is not done by adjusting focus, and uses a sliding rig to change the position of the focal plane. For most camera lenses, the precision of the focus ring mechanism is too dodgy to precisely change the focus. With the slider, the focus ring is left alone, and the precision of the slider is use to bring the next "layer" into focus. The author even commented on the slider he used was not as precise due to it being belt driven and that switching to a lead screw system would have provided more accuracy.
- mhb 6y agoOK. I have no first hand experience, but I saw that Helicon makes a product which incrementally adjusts a camera's focuser. https://www.heliconsoft.com/heliconsoft-products/helicon-fb-tube/ https://www.heliconsoft.com/heliconsoft-products/helicon-fb-...
- dharma1 6y agoI tried the same a few years ago with the original Blackmagic Pocket (for video, no focus stacking). You can get pretty good microscope lenses cheaply on eBay and the rms-m42 adapter is cheap. https://youtu.be/JwIDTtu8XnA https://youtu.be/JwIDTtu8XnA A lot of shakiness at that magnification level though (had to stabilise in post) and the depth of field is razor thin - this is where focus stacking with stills helps a lot. Optically I’ve found regular super-macro lenses are better (2:1 or more)
- danybittel 6y agoThis looks fantastic. I've been wondering if it's possible to record 180° stereo (for VR), in "close" to macro?
- dharma1 6y agoThanks! Good question - the FOV with macro lenses would not be anywhere near 180°, though I'm sure you could distort the video to wrap around you. Stereo macro seems to be a thing with stills, at least - https://www.flickr.com/groups/2158359@N23/pool/with/35314464236/ https://www.flickr.com/groups/2158359@N23/pool/with/35314464...
- danybittel 6y agoMhm.. you can't wrap a still to 180°, that is not the same effect. The focal point would need to be right where you want to take the shot. I'm more thinking of something like that: https://www.amazon.com/Industrial-Synchronized-Security-Counting-Stereoscopic/dp/B07MFTLQVT https://www.amazon.com/Industrial-Synchronized-Security-Coun.... But the lenses need to be closer together and be able to stay in focus at a much closer range. Maybe IMAX had done some macro (insects) stereo documentary.
- dharma1 6y agowhat I meant to say is with macro lenses the FOV is narrow because of the high magnification, and with VR you typically want (very) wide angle lenses. 180 stereo VR is usually shot with two cameras (in portrait) with fisheye lenses, I've worked on a couple of these shoots. The minimum focal distance on these lenses can be pretty small (a couple of cm) so you can get sort of a "semi" macro effect, though not quite the same
- zokier 6y agoKinda opposite direction, with the launch of new very high res ("50 megapixels") Sony a1 I started thinking that with a macro objective you could use it as a sort of low-magnification microscope. With a 1:1 macro, if you crop a 4k section from the full-resolution image and draw it on a 32" display you'd get 40x magnification (sort of) if I did my math right; 1px on screen would correspond to roughly 4µm which gives some ballpark on what sort features you could see with it. But it gets better still, there are at least some 2:1 magnification macro lenses [1] out there, those would double the magnification you get. I haven't really figured out how that compares to "real" microscopes, or even like the $100 chinese digital scopes. [1] https://www.dpreview.com/products/venus/lenses/venus_laowa_100_2p8_macro https://www.dpreview.com/products/venus/lenses/venus_laowa_1... and its 65mm counterpart
- Scene_Cast2 6y agoCheck out Fuji's GFX100S. It's a consumer camera ($6000) that can take 400MP photos.
- throwanem 6y agoI bet medium-format 1:1 macro lenses are spendy, though.
- namibj 6y agoOnly if they're fast. Slow objectives would get by with lenses from e.g. regular eyeglasses arbitrary-aspheric production lines. It only gets expensive (>1000$) when you need fancy glass elements (or manage to waste a lot of money on inefficient R&D... computers are really good these days, and at least for fixed-focus prime lenses (you want 1:1, right?) the parameter space is fairly small. I can highly recommend [0] for some reading on how simple optics can be if you can optimize aspherics for a fixed focus. Just to state the obvious: two identical infinity-focused objectives can be placed with the infinity-corrected sides looking straight towards another, for a physically long 1:1 macro "lens". I wonder if there is a decent topology for a decently-high-NA reflective objective in the 1:1 to 1:10 (object:sensor) magnification range. And also whether some of those topologies would cope with a (sensor-sized) reflective spatial light modulator (LCoS/DLP would seem most practically relevant) in place of the sensor. I still get that mouth-watering imagination when thinking about direct digital (maskless) photolithography, as the flexibility is enormous, especially regarding rapid prototyping of highly integrated circuits (350 nm is the limit for single-patterning using aluminium-coated MEMS modulators (aka TI's DLP technology), due to the UV reflectivity drop below 400 nm and thermal limits of the MEMS device). [0]: https://www.telescope-optics.net/ https://www.telescope-optics.net/
- zwieback 6y agoWe have a lot of Mitutoyo Plan APOs floating around at work, sometimes they come up on ebay. If you can get your hands on a 5x or 10x those are great for quickie high mag photography. Highly recommended.
- avmich 6y agoI'm disappointed - there is no DIY lenses here, not by my book, no glass polishing or optical precision casting, just assembling already existing optics.
- Havoc 6y agoThe fact that I could go and buy this tomorrow is insane. Not that long ago this would have require research lab access
- AtomicOrbital 6y agoFocus stacking is great and so is high dynamic range imaging so to use both requires N by M images where N is number of focus stacking images and M number of hdr images plus the software to combine those into one output images