Microscope on APS-C DSLR - which adapter?

[fmueller]

<p>I would like to hook up my 7D to a microscope. The microscope I bought is an old Olympus E Series compound microscope from about 1968. I've got the binocular version, ie no camera port. I understand it should be no problem to take out one eye piece and hook up the camera there. There are plenty of adapters on eBay for EF/EFs mount, but what's confusing me is that these adapter come without lens (cheapest) or with magnifications of 0.5x, 1.0x, and 2.0x in the adapter. Since the adapter will replace a 10x eye piece, my initial hunch would have been to look for a 10x adapter, but no such thing seems to exist. What difference does the magnification of the adapter make, and which one should I buy? Does it make a difference that my camera is APS-C versus full frame? Maybe it's best to buy one without lens, because presumably these lenses are not exactly L grade? I am totally new to this microscopy thing, but was hoping to find somebody here with experience in the area.<br /></p>

[SCL]

<p>Years ago I did a lot of microscopy photography, for fun and school. Essentially it usually works like this: if you keep the (normal 50mm or so) lens on your camera - focused at infinity, you can use an extension tube which fits over the eyepiece (ocular) of sufficient length to fill the frame of your sensor. Most regular Barlow eyepieces (oculars) for microscopes are achromatic and not flat field lenses...so you typically get fringing, chromatic aberation, and heavy curvature of field. Better ones are apochromatic (corrected for 3 color wavelengths) and flat field...but they are much more expensive. I'm not really familiar with the adapters with lenses in them, but I do remember once using a Leica or Zeiss one which had a correcting lens in it which projected the image about 6-8 inches back onto a 4x5 film plate. I'm just guessing but the magnification of the ones you cited are probably best suited for low power microscopy. Does your microscope manual suggest using a particular adapter for 35mm cameras? What about your camera manual...many of them list specific adapters for use on microscopes? If all else fails, you can just try one from the Bay and see how it works. The critical things in microscopy photography are rigidness of support for both the microscope and camera, as the focusing mechanisms have additional weight upon them, and may be prone to creeping, and the light used to illuminate the specimen...for normal use you would be using an Abbe condenser, so you may need to experiment on how best to adjust that condenser for each specimen. The camera image typically will be pretty dim, but be careful in boosting the power output of your light source so that you don't fry the specimens - especially if you are shooting live ones. Also a cable release for your camera is an absolute necessity. Best of luck and enjoy the challenges. You may find as you go along that you get sucked into more esoteric types of photomicrography including dark field and polarized work, each fasscinating for what it reveals and each presenting photographic challenges.</p><div></div>

[MickSimpson]

<p>Will this work on a telescope?</p>