I seem to be getting better at this. The last time I even attempted to shoot HDR-style photos at 1000x I wasn’t even close to focus. As much as I’d love to blame my tools, rather I should blame the fact that the camera isn’t mounted coplanar with the focal plane of the binocular eyepieces of the trinocular setup (and mostly I wanted to use the word trinocular). And, as it’s only a 1.8 megapixel sensor (don’t worry, it’s a CCD not a CMOS so the quality isn’t dependent on pixel factor alone) which makes it a little hard to view on the computer screen to focus. Also, at 1000x, moving the fine focus knob a millimeter or so totally throws off focus. So it’s like hunt-and-peck.
I’m going to talk to the teachers, and see if we either have a better camera on another scope or if I can be allowed to adjust the camera mount so focus is, you know, focus.
Tags: HDR, microscopy, photography