Nikon D70-Scope questions!

[die-varieties]

Hi Folks,

I have a few questions. I own an old L W Scientific stereo microscope. I also own a Nikon D70 digital camera. Will the following product

http://store.amscope.com/ca-nik-slr.html

able me to shoot close enough shots of different varieties. It is my understanding the this product is only 2x magnification. Since I am not using my camera lens nor the eyepeice of the scope, how is 2x mag strong enough to show doubling on the coin? Is there something else needed? Any help would be appreciated!! My old setup was an old Casio digital camera which lens diameter was the same diameter as the eyepiece of the scope was able to shoot 30x shots which were fairly decent. The good old days, the camera has since gone and being out of the variety hunt, I never thought of variety shooting when I purchased the Nikon duh! I also see the usb cameras that you can use but have read a few threads not favoring this setup.

I am just getting back into and we all know that shots your varieties is a must!!

Thanks everyone :)

[Roller]

I shoot a 2X with a Nikon D70 through the third "eye" of my National trinocular scope. The 2X is added to the magnification of your scope setting so, yes, you can get real close. Trouble is, you will probably not be able to get the whole coin in to the frame for a shot.

[die-varieties]

Thanks for the reply. I could probably shoot whole coin shots with the tripod and macro lens right?

[Roller]

Probably, although I've gone through many experiments and I now use a bellows with an 80mm Nikon enlarger lens. The 55mm Nikkor micro did not get the whole coin in the frame. You can see the results of the 80mm (though I'm still working on the lighting and focus) in a post I made toninght in the "varieties" section for a 2000P WAM. For real close in shots though, I intend to resort to the 2X attachment to the D70 and microscope. There has been an ongoing thread on photography started by ray-parkhurst in this forum. You might look in on that. I copied a lot of his stuff lately with some success.

[ray_parkhurst]

Probably, although I've gone through many experiments and I now use a bellows with an 80mm Nikon enlarger lens. The 55mm Nikkor micro did not get the whole coin in the frame. You can see the results of the 80mm (though I'm still working on the lighting and focus) in a post I made toninght in the "varieties" section for a 2000P WAM. For real close in shots though, I intend to resort to the 2X attachment to the D70 and microscope. There has been an ongoing thread on photography started by ray-parkhurst in this forum. You might look in on that. I copied a lot of his stuff lately with some success.

Thought I'd chime in here to add that once you have a camera capable of doing macro shots there's little need for a trinocular scope. You can simply attach a microscope objective to your macro lens or bellows. Here is a shot I took with a very inexpensive 4x microscope objective mounted on bellows:

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad273/rparkhurst/4x20Achromat.jpg

[Roller]

Thought I'd chime in here to add that once you have a camera capable of doing macro shots there's little need for a trinocular scope. You can simply attach a microscope objective to your macro lens or bellows. Here is a shot I took with a very inexpensive 4x microscope objective mounted on bellows:

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad273/rparkhurst/4x20Achromat.jpg
That's an interesting concept. Problem is that the objective lens on my stereo scope is not removable. I'm using a 0.5 reducing objective on the scope that is removable, just to get farther from the subject while searching. That gets about 95% of the penny in the frame when shooting through the scope. If I could get an 0.3 reduction lens for the scope, I would not need the macro/bellows set up. Unfortunately, I cannot find such a lens for my National scope.

[ray_parkhurst]

What I've found is that adapting microscopes to the task of full-field coin imaging is a bigger challenge than adapting a macro setup for use at high power. The difference is between what is called "Photomacrography" (photos using macro photography techniques) and "Photomicrography" (photos using microscope techniques). The holy grail is a single setup that can be configured for viewing coins full field or at higher magnification to identify varieties, and also can take high quality pictures of both full-field and varieties. The setups I've been building can be configured to do it all, but even at that I still maintain my stereo microscope for actual searching for varieties. Stereo view is an extra help when identifying varieties, but forget about photographing it...Ray

[Roller]

I agree that the through-the-microscope shot is not anywhere near what can be done with macro and bellows. However, there are two purposes for why I want to shoot coins. One is to post on this site for questions or to share and the other is ebay and other sales (eventually). While I want to get the best picture out there for this site, it does not need to be magazine quality to show the variety or anomaly. And the fact that I can quickly do that through the microscope without goin to the macro set-up is a good tradeoff for the lack of quality. On the other hand, when I find my 92 CAM, you can bet that I'll take it to the set-up.

[ray_parkhurst]

Canon's and Nikon's Live View functions are good enough that you can practically use them as many folks use USB microscopes now for live viewing of varieties and overall views...Ray

[BadThad]

thought i'd chime in here to add that once you have a camera capable of doing macro shots there's little need for a trinocular scope. You can simply attach a microscope objective to your macro lens or bellows. Here is a shot i took with a very inexpensive 4x microscope objective mounted on bellows:




awesome macro shot!