A bit more clarity please!

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DaveW
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A bit more clarity please!

Post by DaveW »

It is perhaps a bit presumptuous of me, having just joined, to pass an opinion on this site, but at least I can give the opinion of a person seeing it for the first time.

I have a bit of a job navigating it because the posts seem so mixed up. I would have thought there was an obvious division between photomacrography and photomicrography because the equipment and techniques are different? Therefore, would it not be better to segregate the two subjects so those looking for information on photomacrography could find it in it's own dedicated section whilst those seeking photomicrography articles could find it in theirs?

At the moment I am wading through posts on photomicrography to find posts on photomacrography in the same sections, and I am sure the microscopists are having similar troubles. Just a simple division on the site between the two disciplines would make life a lot easier for all concerned I think?

DaveW

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Ken Ramos
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Post by Ken Ramos »

Sorry to read that you are having a bit of trouble navigating our site Dave and by the way, Welcome to the Forums. :D As for the division of the two disciplines, we have a Macro and Close-up Photography Forum and Photography Through the Microscope Forum. Each one is dedicated to the subject title. Also for those beginning in microscopy we have a beginners forum as well.

So, Dave it leaves me a bit puzzled as to how you are getting mixed up between the two or maybe I may have misunderstood your question and suggestions or might you be referring to our Technical Disscusions Forum? :-k Anyway Dave if we can be of anymore assistance to you, please don't hesitate to ask. :D
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DaveW
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Post by DaveW »

Ken

I was referring to a basic division needed on the site, not just an individual forum or sub-forum for both subjects. Perhaps I can make it clearer below:-

Photomacrography Section

All forums and posts dealing with photomacrography

Photomicrography Section

All forums and posts dealing with photomicrography.

That would mean no mixing of photomacrography and photomicrography posts in any forum or sub-forum. It would be obvious then where to post photomacrography and photomicrography comments, links or pictures and to look for these.

Just a thought, but perhaps I am seeing it with "new eyes" as all of you have become used to the existing layout. These sites and forums tend to evolve over time, rather than being planned at the outset because other features keep getting added. Perhaps it is time to take stock and see if the site needs reorganising now into the two separate disciplines to make it even more useful?

Only a newcomers opinion, I hope you don't mind feedback?

DaveW

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twebster
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Post by twebster »

Hi ya' Dave, :D

Welcome to our community and, no, we don't mind feedback. I'm sorry you find the community hard to navigate. The image galleries are divided by photomacrography/photomicrography, however, we have found that to continue a sense of "community" it doesn't hurt to have the topics mixed in the "General Discussion", "Community Members and Friends", and the "Technical Discussions" fora. Macro photographers and micro photographers have a lot in common and some mixing of the discussions are beneficial to each group and the community as a whole. Our aim is not to completely separate these groups but to allow interaction. :D

Take some time to navigate the site a little more. The forums/galleries are not the only features. Check out the links, above, to the front pages of the macro- and micro- web sites. Also, within the forum you will find separate links to some articles found on the web sites. We welcome suggestions but, please, give us a bit more of a "test drive". :D

Thanks for signing up and I look forward to your contributions to our community. :D
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DaveW
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Post by DaveW »

Will keep searching Tom!

However, I posted a link to Nikon's interactive microscope site somewhere in reply to somebody who could not get books on the subject:-

http://www.microscopyu.com/sitemap.html

I had to apologise in case anybody had posted the link before because there were too many mixed up posts to go through them all on the subject. I still do not know if I should have posted it there or in "Links"?

Though not being a microscopist I found this interesting site when searching for Nikon items, because I am a new D200 user + 60mm micro nikkor and the 70-180mm micro nikkor zoom on order, having changed to digital from an F2 Photomic + 55mm f3.5 non-AI micro nikkor I used for 30 years, which I recently sold as a classic camera for more than I originally paid for it!

Where do I ask if anybody knows anything about using microfilm or microfitch lenses on camera for close-up work? Our local surplus stores had a tray full of these, no doubt ex government or military, which I presume are from readers rather than the cameras to make microfilms.

The one I bought for a couple of Pounds was unmarked, having no focal length, aperture or maker stamped on it. I was intending to use it on my old Nikon bellows, but got rid of these with my old camera before I got chance to try the lens. A friend had already made a mount for me.

I am a bit dubious about mounting it direct on the D200 because many of the Nikon close-up accessories had to be modified, or used with an extension tube between them and the newer autofocus camera bodies due to the electrical contacts on these coming in contact with the old metal bayonet parts etc.

Are these "reader" lenses achromats or apochromats does anybody know? They are obviously fixed aperture and should be optimised for close-up work?

DaveW

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twebster
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Post by twebster »

Hi ya' Dave, :D
DaveW wrote:Where do I ask if anybody knows anything about using microfilm or microfitch lenses on camera for close-up work?
Post a question like this in the "Macro and Micro Technique and Technical Discussions" forum.

I, personally, don't have any suggestions on how to use copier lenses for macro work. We have such a diverse membership I'm sure someone will chime in. :D

Best regards, :D
Tom Webster
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rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

Dave,

I'll make two postings here -- one to respond to your concerns about forum organization, and a second with some thoughts about your microfilm reader lenses.

This is the first post, about forum organization.

I don't know exactly which postings are causing your confusion, but I can imagine that the group includes some of mine.

That's because the distinction between "micro" and "macro" is not always as clear as it might seem at first blush.

Several frequent posters, myself included, do a lot of work in a fuzzy area between the categories.

Consider, for example, my mushroom pics at http://www.photomacrography1.net/forum/ ... php?t=4693 and my click beetle pics at http://www.photomacrography1.net/forum/ ... php?t=5112.

Are those pictures macro, or are they micro?

Well, they're are all shot with short lenses on long extensions, and there are no real images formed in front of the camera sensor. Those aspects argue "macro".

But the magnifications and resolutions are much higher than typical macro, definitely in range of a compound microscope. That argues "micro".

Hhmm, what to do?

To my eye, the forum descriptions can be summarized as "through a (compound) microscope" versus "everything else".

That made a lot of sense to me when I first got here. But the more of this high-magnification photography I do, the more I realize that to distinguish between compound microscopy and everything else is artificial and not always helpful.

The reason is simple -- light just doesn't care whether it comes to a focus more than once.

What matters is the total magnification, the cone angle (F-number or NA), where the light comes from, whether it's polarized and where the polarizers are, etc etc. There's no difference whether the total magnification comes from two stages of lenses, like in a compound microscope, or one stage of lenses plus a high resolution digital sensor (like my work), or one stage of lenses plus a big piece of film (like some early microscopy work).

So, how are we to divide the forums?

Arguably the best division would be something like "Subject frame widths under 5 mm" versus "Subject frame widths over 5 mm". That would put all the traditional micro stuff in one slot, all the traditional macro stuff in the other slot, and all the other stuff would have a nice clear rule for placement.

But dang, when I read that, it seems pretty artificial too. And I have to know a whole bunch to appreciate why it's *not* artificial. Rules that can't be understood don't work either. Compound microscope vs everything else is at least easy to decide, even if some gadflies like me put stuff in the "wrong" place.

Anyway, I'm afraid that for macro vs micro, we're just left with an awkward situation that the boundaries are fuzzy. If you have some insights to share that would make them more clear, we'll be all ears to hear them.

--Rik
Last edited by rjlittlefield on Mon Jul 10, 2006 11:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by rjlittlefield »

Dave,

This is my second post, about your microfilm reader lenses.

Generally speaking, those lenses are designed to provide flat field and high resolution at one fixed magnification, with fairly short throw and a large projection circle, with depth of field not an issue. The result is a fairly wide aperture lens, well corrected for the exact configuration of the reader.

If you wanted to record a flat subject direct onto 8" x 10" film at design magnification, I'd guess that they're probably quite good. The farther you deviate from that model, the shakier any prediction gets.

In theory, the fact that the lens covers a wide field is not a problem. In practice, the design tradeoffs that give wide field at reasonable cost also reduce central resolution. The central 24x36mm that you get from that microfilm lens is not likely to look good, compared to a macro lens designed to cover just the 24x36mm and no more.

How much worse it will look, I really can't say.

I can tell you that over the last 40 years I have played with quite a variety of salvaged and surplus lenses, and they were all *way* less effective than made-for-the-job macro lenses such as the Olympus 38mm f/2.8 bellows lens and the Zeiss Luminar 16mm f/2.5 objective that I have recently shelled out for.

But you've got the lens, give it a shot. Duct-tape together an extension made of mailing tubes if you have to. You'll lose some contrast in reflections off walls of the tube, but it'll give a pretty accurate impression of resolution. (No, I am not kidding about the duct tape. If you look very very carefully at Figure 6 in http://www.janrik.net/insects/ExtendedD ... summer.htm, you may see the carefully trimmed ends of the duct tape that was holding that 10X microscope objective in place.)

You're dead on about being concerned not to mess with those electrical contacts. The protocols on those things can be complicated enough to be considered magic. I don't know for sure what the Nikon's are. A careful web search might find the answer, but in any case, you're probably going to be reduced to manual exposure. I have seen reports that some cameras won't even do manual exposures if they can't talk to the lens. Hopefully your D200 is not among them.

Please post again if you have other questions or concerns. The discussion is a large part of what makes this site an interesting place to hang out.

Best regards,
--Rik
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DaveW
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Post by DaveW »

Rik

To me the logical distinction between photomacrography and photomicrography is not magnification, but wether the image is taken on a compound microscope or a "simple microscope", the latter being photomacrography.

The first requires, usually, a purpose designed microscope, the latter is extending the magnification of a camera using a single lens (although usually multi-elemented) through the use of extension of one kind or another.

Agreed, many of the problems and solutions overlap, but it is still much handier and quicker to be able to search for each discipline in it's own pidgeon hole! That obviously does not preclude you searching both, but saves you the time wading through a lot of material you are only able to use if you have a microscope available, and vice versa if you have a microscope but no significant extension devices for the camera.

It is merely a convenient classification to aid rapid search for what you are after.

Thanks for the information on the microfilm lens, I have never been against cobbled up set ups. Being a joiner, often much of my "engineering" was done in timber to make optical benches and copy stands before I bought proper focusing slides etc. By the way many of the old enlargers people are now throwing away since the move to digital make excellent copy stands for photomacrography if their head is removed and some sort of device made to fix the camera vertically on them. In fact the head on my old Durst M600 is fixed on with a 1/4" British Whitworth bolt, which is the standard tripod screw so the camera just bolts in place of the head! Be carefull though that any bolt is not too long for the camea socket in case you damage it. You may need to reduce it's length by washers or some form of plate. But I digress!

I will see if I can work something out to try the lens. The reason I got rid of all my old close-up gear used on my fully manual F2 was the fear it might conflict with the electrical contacts on Nikon autofocus and digital cameras that came later. I know Nikon changed some parts by either milling away metal that may short out the contacts or using plastic to replace these. This is why I am always cautious about buying third party bellows etc, though I suppose electronic automation has now been around so long most modern equipment will avoid these contacts?

Thanks again,

DaveW

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Post by rjlittlefield »

DaveW,

You wrote

"To me the logical distinction between photomacrography and photomicrography is not magnification, but wether the image is taken on a compound microscope or a "simple microscope", the latter being photomacrography."

I understand, and that's a very common and usually useful distinction.

My point is that there are other equally logical distinctions that produce different answers. One of our site admins has a signature line that says "Worry about the image that comes out of the box, rather than the box itself." I think that's pretty profound. As it happens, the image is not affected by "compound microscope" versus "simple microscope". It is affected by "the total magnification, the cone angle (F-number or NA), where the light comes from, whether it's polarized and where the polarizers are, etc etc" as I wrote in my post above. So those are the things that I worry about. I understand that puts me in a minority, and I'm ok with that.

But taking compound vs simple as being the distinction of choice, I'm still puzzled about what you're running into that's making you see an organizational problem.

I reviewed the most recent 100 postings in each of the macro and micro galleries. On the macro side, nothing was shot with compound optics. On the micro side, I found 4 postings that included images shot with simple optics. Two of those postings included related images shot with both simple and compound optics. The other two were mine, and I've already addressed why. (I still have a lot of trouble with the concept of posting a >250X image as "macro", just because the light only focused once. It's also worth noting that my low mag, low res videos were shot through a compound microscope. It was the high mag, high res stuff that came from what you'd call my "macro" setup. An interesting inversion, isn't it?)

Anyway, yes, there are a lot of images on the micro side showing aphids, dragonfly heads, entire mineral crystals, and the like, that are easily within range of macro setups. But in fact they were shot with low-power compound optics. In some cases that's not stated, but I've read a lot of postings from these guys and I'm pretty confident I know what equipment they're using.

So, I figure you've either been misled by the appearance of the images, or you're talking about something else, perhaps the mix of topics under "Macro and Micro Technique and Technical Discussions" in the "Technique and Technical Discussion Forum".

Can you clarify?

--Rik
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Post by rjlittlefield »

DaveW,

You wrote:

"The reason I got rid of all my old close-up gear used on my fully manual F2 was the fear it might conflict with the electrical contacts on Nikon autofocus and digital cameras that came later. I know Nikon changed some parts by either milling away metal that may short out the contacts or using plastic to replace these. This is why I am always cautious about buying third party bellows etc, though I suppose electronic automation has now been around so long most modern equipment will avoid these contacts?

Nikon, I don't know about. My experience has been with Pentax (threaded and K-mount) and more recently Canon EF-S. As I've migrated bodies, I've generally just purchased or fabricated adapters to hold the old lenses and extensions in proper position. Compatibility of electronics and moving parts was not an issue because there just wasn't any. Maybe that's true for Nikon too, maybe it's not. I have no way to tell.

What I can see is that there are at least a couple of types of adapters for the D200 advertised on ebay: M42 (Pentax thread) and 52mm reversing. You might find it effective to pick up one of those and use it as part of a cobbled-together system. ("Cobbled-together"? I'm not sure how I feel about that phrase. How about "prototype"? :D )

I would tend to assume that the folks who manufacture these adapters are cautious enough to avoid problems from shorting, though of course I could be wrong about that.

--Rik
Reworks and reposts of my images in this forum are always welcome, as are constructive critiques.

DaveW
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Post by DaveW »

Thanks Rik,

You have to remember my old F2 was the last of the fully manual Nikon's, only the light meter used a battery! There were therefore no electrical contacts between the lens and camera therefore, so as the electrical contacts came later no provision had been made to miss these.

Since that time my old BR-2 reversing ring had been replaced by the BR-2A to avoid these contacts, and other things like the PK-11 extension tube was replaced by the PK-11A. You also have to use this on the back of the bellows when mounting an automatic camera because the bellows mount pre-existed auto cameras and I presume could short the contacts?

If you look at both Canon and Nikon close-up equipment it usually pre-dates auto or digital cameras. It is about time they both brought out a new range for the digital age. I am sure most equipment now on sale has been changed, or adapted, to miss electrical contacts. But cameras are now too expensive to take the risk. Compatibility with electrical contacts was not desired, it was avoidance of them!

"Cobbled-together"? I'm not sure how I feel about that phrase. How about "prototype"?

Shall we say experimental then, "married" or "harmonised"?

To your previous point:-

"So, I figure you've either been misled by the appearance of the images, or you're talking about something else, perhaps the mix of topics under "Macro and Micro Technique and Technical Discussions" in the "Technique and Technical Discussion Forum".

Maybe so, but it would be interesting to find out how many on this site have a microscope and how many just have a camera with either just a "macro" lens or some form of extension? No doubt some have both also. I still maintain the method is a more relevant division than the magnification!

DaveW

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

DaveW,

You wrote:
  • "...it would be interesting to find out how many on this site have a microscope and how many just have a camera with either just a "macro" lens or some form of extension? No doubt some have both also."
It's hard to tell across the entire membership. But it's easy to tell among the most frequent posters. I pulled a list of the top 10 most frequent posters and checked to see which galleries they had used and what they had posted there.

And the answers are...
  • * 6 of the top 10 regularly post in both forums and apparently own or have regular access to both kinds of equipment. These people account for 46.03% of total postings.

    * 3 more of the top 10 post mostly macro, but have posted micro at least once and clearly have or had at least occasional access to a microscope. These people account for another 15.54% of total postings.

    * 1 of the top 10 has posted only macro images and only a couple of comments in the micro forum.
So there you have it (says the ad-man): 9 out of 10 users have both!

I'm jesting, of course (or is that "jousting"), but I think the numbers make pretty clear that this is far from a one-or-the-other community.

Now that I've spent time answering your question, how about answering mine?
  • "So, I figure you've either been misled by the appearance of the images, or you're talking about something else, perhaps the mix of topics under "Macro and Micro Technique and Technical Discussions" in the "Technique and Technical Discussion Forum".

    Can you clarify?
I really am curious about this. You're the first person that I can recall commenting about not enough division, and I can't figure out whether there's a real problem that we frequent users have overlooked, or whether you just happened to come in with a strong preconception of how things ought to be and have had some trouble adjusting.

Any insight you can provide would be helpful.

Thanks,
--Rik
Reworks and reposts of my images in this forum are always welcome, as are constructive critiques.

DaveW
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Post by DaveW »

Will get back to you on your last point Rik as I am hopping backwards and forwards between posting on three sites at the moment, plus having to fit work and other things in between, so I really need to go through most of the postings on this site to give you an honest answer. My original remarks were based on a first impression as a new user.

DaveW

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