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Mineral PhotographyAmscope eyepiece camera

29th Oct 2011 17:43 UTCHenry Barwood

I'm curious if anyone has used one of the megapixel Amscope eyepiece cameras. The 10 mp version was on sale, so I took a chance and ordered one. Their specs are a bit vague on the actual resolution, but I suspect that it is 1080 X 960 with interpolation to the 10 mp level. Even that lower resolution should be sufficient for the needs of my application.

29th Oct 2011 19:30 UTCTravis Olds Expert

Hi Henry,

I've used their 10 MP for some of my recent photos:

http://www.mindat.org/user-8894.html#2

The color of the photos ends up a little off and washed out on crystal reflections, but this might go away if you have a nice set up for lighting, which I don't.

Travis

29th Oct 2011 21:17 UTCHenry Barwood

Travis, what type of microscope are you using? Your images are showing considerable astigmatism (central focus and blurry edges). This may be a mismatch between the Amscope optics and your microscope. Thanks for commenting.

29th Oct 2011 21:49 UTCTravis Olds Expert

Henry,

The scope is from Amscope, Model SM-1T. When I find something I'd like to take an image of, I rack the focus up out of focus, and take as many pictures as I can bringing the focus down manually until the piece is underfocused (maybe 5 or 6 of them.) To explain the astigmatism, I guess I sacrifice having blurry edges so I can get a sharper image of the mineral of interest. When I try to make a composite image of the entire field in focus I've found the thing I wanted to image is blurrier, since I can only get so many images in doing it manually on a small crystal. I'm all ears on suggestions though on how to take a better photo.

Travis

29th Oct 2011 22:05 UTCHenry Barwood

Hi Travis,

There is nothing that you are doing wrong. I love CombineZ and stacking really improves both depth of field and apparent resolution. I won't get my camera for a week or so, but plan on using it on a Nikon SMZ-10 scope. I may also try it on Leitz and AO scopes just to check the compatibility. Once I've had a chance to check the optical match of these scopes, I'll get back with you with, perhaps, some suggestions.

From what I was able to gather from the Amscope literature, the coupling lens is a 0.5X negative lens (no idea if it is achromatic, etc). That may introduce distortion in various microscope configurations. I'm also concerned that the true resolution of the sensor is only around 1MP rather than 10MP. Manufacturers are getting very cagey announcing large MP cameras that are really based on small sensors and then use digiral interpolation to achieve the higher rating. Digital interpolation will not, repeat, will not, increase the actual resolution of a digital camera. You cannot make a 3000 X 2000 pixel imager out of one that actually only has 640 X 480 pixels

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