I don't know the limit of photo attachments, so I will make this post multi-part.
Part 1:
After seeing some of the amazing repair work that people do on YouTube, I have been wanting to get a digital microscope. Trying to get by with these things is just not making the cut anymore.
I have a cheap reflow box and I picked up an Aixum T3A micro soldering station from eBay for $80. But throwing in another few hundred dollars for a bi/tri-nocular is not in my budget. Being the DIY'er that I am, I thought about this for a while and fell back on some photography knowledge : the Reverse Macro lens. I have used these in photography as well as a set of belows for adjusting field of focus and macro photography. I have a few lo-res webcams for telescopes (no lenses attached) and thought I would try it with an old lens.
All of my photography equipment is Canon, so this Nikon lens was donated to me by one of my sisters and I could not just throw it out. So this is the base of my microscope. Here is a lo-res webcam I used to test some ideas.
I 3D printed a lens cap style cone to attach them together and keep the extra light out.
A view of them assembled.
Now I have not figured out the arm at this point, so I took some shots handheld.
Not bad... but contrast was very poor. So I dug around and found a higher resolution webcam (1080p) with an attached lens.
While this camera does have an adjustable lens, it just does not get close enough.
When adjusted correctly for focus, it is about an inch away from the keyboard, so no room to actually work on anything as well as a limited amount of zoom.
But using it with my reverse lens, I get much better contrast than the lo-res camera.
Again, this was handheld, so not as sharp of focus as desired.
Part 1:
After seeing some of the amazing repair work that people do on YouTube, I have been wanting to get a digital microscope. Trying to get by with these things is just not making the cut anymore.
I have a cheap reflow box and I picked up an Aixum T3A micro soldering station from eBay for $80. But throwing in another few hundred dollars for a bi/tri-nocular is not in my budget. Being the DIY'er that I am, I thought about this for a while and fell back on some photography knowledge : the Reverse Macro lens. I have used these in photography as well as a set of belows for adjusting field of focus and macro photography. I have a few lo-res webcams for telescopes (no lenses attached) and thought I would try it with an old lens.
All of my photography equipment is Canon, so this Nikon lens was donated to me by one of my sisters and I could not just throw it out. So this is the base of my microscope. Here is a lo-res webcam I used to test some ideas.
I 3D printed a lens cap style cone to attach them together and keep the extra light out.
A view of them assembled.
Now I have not figured out the arm at this point, so I took some shots handheld.
Not bad... but contrast was very poor. So I dug around and found a higher resolution webcam (1080p) with an attached lens.
While this camera does have an adjustable lens, it just does not get close enough.
When adjusted correctly for focus, it is about an inch away from the keyboard, so no room to actually work on anything as well as a limited amount of zoom.
But using it with my reverse lens, I get much better contrast than the lo-res camera.
Again, this was handheld, so not as sharp of focus as desired.