About Minivid eyepiece camera compatibility

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Garry DeLong
Posts: 38
Joined: Mon Apr 04, 2005 4:56 pm
Location: Portland, Oregon USA

About Minivid eyepiece camera compatibility

Post by Garry DeLong »

Image
I found a "student microscope from India" brand new in its original box at a garage sale for a ridiculous price, even for this problematic hardware. This is one image from that scope--while not the best, it's adequate and I was thinking of using it for flash photography and as a possible backup. I would also like to use my minivid (video, not still) eyepiece camera with it but this scope creates a hot spot (overly bright area in the center of the field.) It's not too bad with the 4x objective but it is quite intolerable with the 10x and 40x objectives. The minivid tech support person said he never heard of such a problem. The Minivid works fine with my Leica microscope but if I take one of the Leica objectives and put it on the cheapo scope, I still get the problem. Condensor adjustments don't help--I even have the problem if I completely remove the condensor. Also, I epi-lighted a specimen and still got the problem. The problem largely disappears if I unscrew and remove the tube that the eyepiece rests atop and bring the minivid down closer to the objective, so it's obviously a tube length problem. Of course, this radical change in tube length blows away the resolution. I really do need a backup video system so I'm thinking of looking around for a video camera (rca plug) that works with the ocular glass eyepiece in place. (Any suggestions?) I guess this post is mostly a caution that even though the Minivid is touted as working in any full-sized microscope, it might not be compatible and one needs to be sure that they can return the camera.
Garry DeLong

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twebster
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Posts: 1518
Joined: Mon Apr 19, 2004 10:55 pm
Location: Phoenix "Valley of the Sun", Arizona, USA

Post by twebster »

Hi ya' Gary :D

Since you already have the connections and equipment for the RCA jacks you might consider using a color surveillance camera. I would recommend taking off the camera lens and, using an eyepiece as a relay lens, image directly to the ccd in the camera. I would think you could make some very nice videos with this setup. :D

Best regards, :D
Tom Webster
Administrator

Phoenix "The Valley of the Sun", Arizona, USA

Think about this...maybe Murphy is an optimist!!!

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