Microscope - New Camera

While the old video cameras were working quite well they don't have great resolution, either 360 or 480 TVL (TV lines). Finding a replacement was quite difficult. Most video cameras seem to have built in IR lighting. Fine for surveillance but useless for my purpose. Eventually I found a German company selling a small basic camera with a resolution of 700 TVL. The 1/3 inch sensor has 976 x 582 pixels, low by modern standards but there is no point in going too high as the definition is also limited by the optics and the video grabber.

This is now fitted to the top of the microscope.

 

I had to fill in some gaps with hot melt glue. This holds it firmly in place and, importantly, makes an air tight seal to stop dust penetrating to the inside of the objective lenses or the camera sensor. Disappointingly the camera is not totally free from blemishes at low lighting conditions but much better than my old cameras.



The pictures look good on the small monitor I use. Unfortunately there is some degradation in capturing the photos on the MacBook. Next job will be to look around for a better quality video grabber.

A quick trial grabbing some photos of a corkscrew hazel catkin at minimum magnification.
The dish is 55mm across.

 

 

A couple of trials taking 20 or more focus stacked shots processed using Zerene Stacker.