Greetings from Bangkok

[Michael Sanders]

I started off many years with a Pentax Spotmatic-F, along with developing and printing B&W films. Then in the early 80's I progressed to Nikon with an FE2 and with a few lenses that I could afford at the time, and dabbled in color processing and printing. Myself and the guy I lived with converted the second spare toilet and half the laundry into a dark room ... obviously we were bachelors at that time. Somewhere about that time I also got a Nikonos camera for underwater photography. Then in 1989, disaster stuck and all my camera gear got stolen.

So a photographic hiatus ensured for a while, where I survived with some cheaper point and shoot options, later a Nikon F50, then several early small Minolta digital's. It wasn't until 2006 that I seriously got back into photography with the purchase of a Nikon D80. That was followed by a D90, a D7000 and finally a D800. Along with numerous DX and FX lenses ! And lastly a Nikon AW110, for taking photo's when running on the hash!

The D800 is my main camera today, and the D7000 is a good backup. The D90 is gone and was traded in for the D7000. The D80 still exists and was converted into an Infrared camera back in 2010, by removing the filter on the front of the CCD and replacing it with a IR filter. This was DIY project, and luckily, the D80 survived the ordeal. Unfortunately, the shutter mechanism in this old D80 has gone all sticky now and it doesn't work properly anymore.

Interested in all sorts of photo techniques ranging from astro-photography, time-lapse, landscape, macro, etc.

Just today I received delivery of an Olympus 4X Microscope objective lens, and currently giving it a run through it's paces.

Michael Sanders
www.starseis.com


Below is the newly acquired microscope objective lens and a test image of 1 baht coin (the images below correspond to about 6mm and 3 mm width respectively). The microscope objective is mounted on the front of the 105 mm + 2x converter that are focused to infinity. The camera is sitting on a Proxxon KT-70 micro-coordinate table. Got to go out and find some better subjects now !

[Jakov Minić]

Michael, I want to here everything possible about the Olympus 4X Microscope objective lens 
Welcome to NG!

[Erik Lund]

Welcome to NikonGear! Enjoy your time here

[elsa hoffmann]

Welcome to NG

[Bjørn Rørslett]

Welcome to NG

Also interested to learn why you choose the 105 VR as the road to getting approx 200 mm relay for an infinity-corrected microscope objective. I have had great results with various straight-off-the-shelf 200 mm Nikkors.

[Michael Sanders]

Bjorn,
Yea, I had intended to use it with the 70-200mm lens while set at 200mm, but there is some minor vignetting in the corners at maximum aperture. I haven't got a fixed 200mm lens, so at the moment I am using it with the 105 with 2x converter, which has no vignetting. But the 70-200 is still an option.

An interesting feature I notice with the 105/2X is by going to close focus distance, can get an apparent magnification increase. Not certain if this is how the infinity corrected objectives are supposed to be used, but it seems to work.

[Bjørn Rørslett]

Zoom lenses are rarely the best choice for 'relay'-type optics.

A true telephoto design would confer a multitude of advantages when used in combination with infinity-corrected microscope objectives. Hence my suggestion of say a 200/4 Nikkor. I have used the various 200/4 non-Micro Nikkors s well as both AIS and AF 200/4 Micro with good to excellent results. This was with 4-10X microscope objectives, plus the 19 mm f/2.8 Macro-Nikkor and 20 mm f/3.5 Canon true macro lenses. The two latter are obviously not infinity-corrected optics and need to be carefully matched with the realy in terms of inter-objective distance should vignetting be avoided.

[Thomas G]

Hi, welcome Michael in this corner of the internet.