Focus Stacking

YOu bought it!! Ok Here is an old photo of mine. The micro scope has an advantage of close to 3 cm of verticle movement this is a lot more than some of the dedicated Z stages.





I purchased a xy stage like this one( it was more expensive than this listing ) I recommend you shop around before buying one. This one will work but with hunting you will find better!

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Microscop...AOSwa39Us5Dn

and I had to modify the xy stage slightly to fit it. I cut a piece of polypropylene to size and epoxied it to the arms that are supposed to hold the specimen slide. This was the trickiest thing to do I had to use card board to support the polypropylene so that it sat level while the epoxy hardened. I then covered it with Camera flock:

I do recommend this product its cheap and very useful to have around and at the price you get more than you need.

http://www.edmundoptics.com/lab-pro...erial/54585/


There are specific Rotary and XY translation stages available for that microscope you purchased. With hunting you will find one cheaply : Here is an example but please note with hunting ( it will take time) you can find it cheaper and there is a rotating version( Highly recommended).

BTW it took me 6 months to find my microscope at that price so even though you didn't get one with an XY stage you got it cheap... I have seen them bid up to US$100.00. Many macro/micro photographers prefer them to the commercial XY stages as they have much more movement. One person motorised the focusing nob so that it could be controlled by a computer while focus stacking:

I believe its buried in this thread on another forum( this thread was the one that convinced me to buy my microscope stage. I had planned to just add the focusing block to the camera mount arm on my Macro rig( as shown in the various set ups in the following link) but when I got it I realized the microscope stand was a nice heavy sold base and I left it mostly as is:

http://www.photomacrography.net/for...c.php?t=6070

Wow nice piece of kit but at US$250.00 I think a US$35.00 Microscope stand with an added XY stage for US$20.00 ( plus postage) is a very economical alternative. I hadn't really taken notice how expensive those purpose built stages are... explains why the Photomacrography forum thread on microscope focus blocks is so popular

wow incredible. I know that there is no doubt a learning curve here. thank you all so much keep the info coming . great stuff

ok my first focus stack. moving the coin by pushing it. think its not to bad. starting to understand how it works. I wanted to try a coin that is very hard to light. so I did a toonie. that is brilliant very shiny. here it is. I used photo merge in elements 13. this image was made up of 4 images

rocky I like the way that first toonie came out, great.

well went shopping on ebay. I found a stage XYZ stage Olympus Nikon. that what the seller called it. well its on the way. it just seems funny to see those to brands together as one. so when it gets here. round 2 here we go have a great one.

I have an idea how to fix this reflection. I wonder what a ring light would do. I have to wait for one more piece. to build austrokiwi light board. maybe that's the answer. have a great one