Do we ever buy weird lenses for "fun"?

OzRay said:

I made something like that, which uses a StackShot that automatically does incremental movements, waits a moment and then fires the shutter, then repeats for whatever number of shots selected (in my case, it moves the subject in this setup):

Olympus Electric Macroscope - Steampunk Style

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Thoughts, Musings, Ideas and Images from South Gippsland
http://australianimage.com.au/wordpress/

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OzRay said:

Letsgokoulos said:

OzRay said:

I made something like that, which uses a StackShot that automatically does incremental movements, waits a moment and then fires the shutter, then repeats for whatever number of shots selected (in my case, it moves the subject in this setup):

Olympus Electric Macroscope - Steampunk Style

--
Thoughts, Musings, Ideas and Images from South Gippsland
http://australianimage.com.au/wordpress/

Click to expand...

Very interesting setup. Would you care explaining more over it, I am definitely curious to understand what the various parts are ?

Marc

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It's basically a flatbed microscope that sort of evolved into a Steampunk device as I started building it. The appearance doesn't have any effect on the functionality, but I thought it would look interesting compared to the usual setups.

What it consists of is basically three parts:

• On the left is an Olympus bellows unit, sporting any camera that you want to use on one end (a mirrorless one in this case), with a microscope lens and adapter on the other end.
• In the middle is more or less a lightbox lined with black flocking material to prevent internal reflections and an opaque diffuser on one end that allows illumination via flash, or continuous light if desired.
• On the right is a microscope column that's been cannibalised for just the micro control mechanism making it into a moveable platform, to which I've attached a stepping motor that I bought from Cognisys: https://www.cognisys-inc.com/products/stackshot/stackshot.php and which is run via the Cognisys StackShot controller.
• The silver ball on the movable platform is used to hold, move and align specimens, attached to a long needle that projects into the lightbox, and the curved part has more black flocking material to keep extraneous backlighting at bay.
• The copper rails allow me to move the bellows and lightbox to suit any magnification required, so that everything is always positioned properly for the platform, with it's relatively modest range of movement.
• Everything else is there more or less for decoration.

--
Thoughts, Musings, Ideas and Images from South Gippsland
http://australianimage.com.au/wordpress/

Click to expand...

Letsgokoulos said:

OzRay said:

Letsgokoulos said:

OzRay said:

I made something like that, which uses a StackShot that automatically does incremental movements, waits a moment and then fires the shutter, then repeats for whatever number of shots selected (in my case, it moves the subject in this setup):

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OzRay said:

It is actually a fully functioning microscope. The relationship to this post, which I didn't explicitly state, is through the microscope lenes (objectives) that I bought to use with it). They were of the cheap variety and didn't perform all that well. I even got some very old Olympus ones with a cheap microscope, but they too hadn't been looked after very well.

The Steampunk look is just a dressing for the device. I'm actually writing a story on Steampunk with examples of the myriad variety of places where you find it appearing. It'll be on my blog next Friday (wanton plug).

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Letsgokoulos said:

Thanks for the explanations, a very interesting project !

I would love to see some of your resulting pictures, would you mind sharing some, please ?

Marc

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OzRay said:

Letsgokoulos said:

Thanks for the explanations, a very interesting project !

I would love to see some of your resulting pictures, would you mind sharing some, please ?

Marc

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Sorry, I missed this. I'll have a look at what I've got, but as I alluded to in my earlier post, the lenses that I bought weren't the greatest. I also just got Zerene Stacker at the time and was having trouble getting decent results (still not entirely happy). Also, I hadn't done a lot of microscopy, so I was on a bit of a learning curve as well.

What I might have to do is resurrect the device and, now that I can tether my camera to a laptop and have wireless flash control, I should be able to work more efficiently that before. I did have a look at some of the shots I'd taken and they don't look very good and I hate to post stuff that I don't like, unless it's pure to demonstrate what doesn't work.

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Tom Caldwell said:

Letsgokoulos said:

OzRay said:

Letsgokoulos said:

OzRay said:

I made something like that, which uses a StackShot that automatically does incremental movements, waits a moment and then fires the shutter, then repeats for whatever number of shots selected (in my case, it moves the subject in this setup):

Click to expand...

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OzRay said:

I made something like that, which uses a StackShot that automatically does incremental movements, waits a moment and then fires the shutter, then repeats for whatever number of shots selected (in my case, it moves the subject in this setup):Olympus Electric Macroscope - Steampunk Style

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Letsgokoulos said:

Tom Caldwell said:

Letsgokoulos said:

OzRay said:

Letsgokoulos said:

OzRay said:

I made something like that, which uses a StackShot that automatically does incremental movements, waits a moment and then fires the shutter, then repeats for whatever number of shots selected (in my case, it moves the subject in this setup):

Click to expand...

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