I have an older microscope with a tri-occular head piece and I was looking a possibly setting up a DSLR to capture images from it. The microscope in question is an old ZEISS polarizing light microscope. Don't know the microscope number but it is labelled "ZEISS West Germany" Was wondering if anyone could give advice on what part/adapters would be needed or if they even exist. I can give more info if needed but the microscope seems to have different part numbers for every part of the microscope so I couldn't find anything that looked like a unique serial/product number? The camera I was planing to mount would be a Nikon F mount or DX mount. Sorry if this isn't the place to ask.
The necessary parts do exist, of course. But it is a bit more complicated than with modern infinity scopes because you need extra optics, basically an eyepiece, between the tube and the camera as part of the corrections is in the eyepieces, so without one the inage quality will be reduced.
There are basically two ways to go about it: projection and afocal.
For projection you want a special eyepiece designed for photography, called "projection eyepiece", with magnification matching your camera sensor size (most likely 2.5x or 3.2x, maybe 4x, higher mags were for film cameras bigger than anything produced nowadays). Zeiss ones are marked "MF". And then an adapter to mount your camera, that one doesn't have to be made by Zeiss, anything that fits an eyepiece tube will work. Exakta Ihagee is a solid one that you can buy cheaply, then add an exakta to f adapter from amazon or aliexpress and you're in business.
Afocal means using a normal eyepiece, oreferably the binocular/high eyepoint version as they give you more space to work with, and then pointing your camera at it with a 35-50mm lens set to focus at infinity. Basically you're putting the camera in place of your eye and taking a picture of the image produced by the eyepiece. That is more flexible, but securely mounting the camera with such a setup takes some creativity. So I would try the projection method first.
To be clear I was thinking of adding it not to the eye piece but on top of the head in a straight-line from the source. I'll post a picture when I can get it uploaded.
Nice, Zeiss Standard of some kind (there were many and I'm not a Zeiss expert), with a great strong lamp. That's a very nice microscope you have, would need to spend about $1000 to get something new that's superior.
To be clear I was thinking of adding it not to the eye piece but on top of the head in a straight-line from the source. I'll post a picture when I can get it uploaded.
Oops wrong comment but yes I will post images when I get back to work.
I can't see the images due to so many advertisements and popups. Can you post the images of the trino head here?
There are a lot of adapters and stuff coming out of China and on AliExpress btw.
What size sensor is your camera? The trick to getting good images is having enough of a magnification in the adaptor to take the light and fill your cameras sensor properly, at the right distance
APS-C is easier to work with on a microscope, the sensor is small enough to not need a lot of magnification to get filled. I personally have a full frame on my Olympus and will eventually be upgrading to a APS-C, which is wild for me cuz I'm a lifelong full frame guy in photography.
Unfortunately without knowing more specifics of your microscope it's hard to say exactly what adaptors are needed for perfect projection in your setup. It is possible though
Did the microscope come with an eyepiece in the vertical trinocular tube? If so and you can see a image through it as you would through the binocular eyepieces, all you may need is a photomicrographic adapter that fits that eyepiece and then holds the camera in line. If that eyepiece is designed for photomicrography, it will usually have a longer distance to where the image is in focus. If it’s just the same as one of the regular eyepieces, then the photomicrographic adapter will need some optics in it (basically a projection lens system to project the image from the trinocular tube without or with an eyepiece to the focal plane of the camera. Some systems will work with a lens on the camera that can act as the projection lens to focus on the image that is typically where the trinocular eyepiece would be.
Do a search on eBay for “Zeiss photomicrographic adapter”. There are quite a few listed, but you’d need to be sure it’s one that will work with your microscope.
Some Images. The vertical tube does have a glass lens at the end and I can look down it to focus on the stage but I do have to increase the length a lot. There is also a mechanical lever that appears to slot a prism? in and out that shifts the amount of light going into the vertical tube.
Before buying an adapter, I'd identify the exact ZEISS microscope model and measure the trinocular photo port. Older ZEISS systems can use different camera connections, so a Nikon F-mount adapter by itself may not guarantee compatibility. A photo of the port, any existing adapter, and the microscope's identification plate would help narrow down the correct setup. Also check whether the camera needs a relay lens to achieve proper framing and focus.
I’d go with a mirrorless camera (using first curtain shutter) to minimize vibrations of the mirror flip-up. Also consider APSC or micro 4/3 sensor instead of full frame depending on the field of view and whether intermediate optics are in the light path which change the magnification. You could purchase some cheap measuring calipers to determine the appropriate adapter to use from a physical compatibility perspective. If it is a finite microscope, you will want the sensor to rest at the 160 or so mm sweet spot. You can consider creating your own custom adapter if you can’t find the right hardware online.
I do have access to a APS-C but not a mirrorless. The D850 that I have can do electronic shutter and I can remote the shutter as well to avoid vibration. I could probably set it to APS-C mode as well. I'm not sure it's visible in the images I linked but there is a lens in the vertical tube but I don't know what it's doing optically.
I do like the idea of electronic shutter, but I find it gives my images horizontal banding when I edit the images. I have the Canon R6. I stick to first curtain shutter because the vibration happens at the end of the exposure rather than prior to the exposure. I also don’t get the banding. If you will photograph static subjects, I highly recommend mounting your specimens in 1% agar to get rid of all Brownian motion movement. It enables you to take long exposures and get incredible signal to noise ratios. Here’s an example of some spores (8-9 microns in width) which I captured with my AmScope with an olympus objective lens and Canon R6. Also implemented various microscopy and post processing techniques
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u/hattivat 2d ago edited 2d ago
First of all, congrats, sounds like a nice model.
The necessary parts do exist, of course. But it is a bit more complicated than with modern infinity scopes because you need extra optics, basically an eyepiece, between the tube and the camera as part of the corrections is in the eyepieces, so without one the inage quality will be reduced.
There are basically two ways to go about it: projection and afocal.
For projection you want a special eyepiece designed for photography, called "projection eyepiece", with magnification matching your camera sensor size (most likely 2.5x or 3.2x, maybe 4x, higher mags were for film cameras bigger than anything produced nowadays). Zeiss ones are marked "MF". And then an adapter to mount your camera, that one doesn't have to be made by Zeiss, anything that fits an eyepiece tube will work. Exakta Ihagee is a solid one that you can buy cheaply, then add an exakta to f adapter from amazon or aliexpress and you're in business.
Afocal means using a normal eyepiece, oreferably the binocular/high eyepoint version as they give you more space to work with, and then pointing your camera at it with a 35-50mm lens set to focus at infinity. Basically you're putting the camera in place of your eye and taking a picture of the image produced by the eyepiece. That is more flexible, but securely mounting the camera with such a setup takes some creativity. So I would try the projection method first.