I've been experimenting with microscope objectives for about four weeks.
I have an Olympus 4x infinity plan objective (ebay £30), which I've mounted on a (
reversed as advised on closeupphotography.com) Raynox DCR-150, which in turn is mounted on Pentax bellows unit adapted to my Olympus EM1 MK2. The point of reversing the Raynox is that it definitely reduces CA if using it to mount microscope objectives on. There is no post production correction at all for CA in this picture.
This is a stack of 60 images via Zerene Stacker. I haven't calculated magnification exactly - it's about 3-4x on the MFT sensor, at around 140mm extension from sensor plane to the front (now rear) element of the Raynox. The Olympus objective is designed to be mounted on a 180mm tube lens, so it's possible to get closer.
Top tip: Zerene Stacker does not handle Prophoto RGB at all well - you need to export your tiffs in Adobe RGB colour space unless you like horrible muddy colours.
The camera with bellows is mounted on a Manfrotto 454 focusing rail. I use an Allen key to turn the drive wheel. A full rotation moves the camera 1.25mm towards the subject. By using the Allen key as a handle/lever, I can easily judge 16 incremental steps for a single rotation, so each step is about 80 microns. The rail is mounted on my tripod, which I've clamped to the stand holding my specimen so that the camera and specimen are not wobbling around relative to each other.
Lighting is a single Godox AD200 on 1/32 power with standard reflector, suspended above the wasp with a pop-up fabric diffuser above the lens, fixed to the top of my bellows with magnets. I set the 2 sec timer on the camera, which when added to the time taken for me to move the lever, gives about 7-10 sec between flashes. I've had no overheating problems with the AD200 using this method, my biggest stack has been 300 images.
Although many photographers use multiple lights for wrap-around illumination, with small subjects, I find it easier to work with one light, and bits of white paper or tin foil to direct fill-in. It's just more precise, and by taking test shots and scrolling back and forth through them, it's easy to see the effects of your lighting/reflector changes.
I put tin foil either side below the wasp to put some fill light lower down his eyes, and hung a piece of white packaging foam on my lens for additional fill-in directly in front of his face. I've covered the bright chrome microscope lens barrel with matt camo tape to avoid unwanted reflections.
The wasp was already dead when I found it a week ago, and since my bottle of ethanol has yet to arrive, he's decomposing rapidly. You should get the idea though. There is some artefact present, but as I practice, I hope to find ways to avoid or reduce it. Not choosing hairy insects would probably be a good start, but it's winter here, beggers can't be choosers.
I'll post a picture of my set up - but I need to wait until sun-up for an iphone pic because my spare body is in transit to Olympus for servicing.
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