Nickp writes “You can use an ordinary digital camera to take pictures through a telescope or microscope, without any special adapters or lenses. The secret is to use “macro mode”, a feature nearly all cameras have nowadays. It’s intended to take closeup pictures of things only a few inches away from the lens, but since that’s the apparent distance of what you see through a scope, it works for that as well.” – Link.
12 thoughts on “Take digital photos through a microscope without any special lens or adapter”
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If you want a “portable” way of increasing the macro capabilities of your digital camera…get a 35mm slide loupe. The clear sides lets in the light for great shots!
http://www.rainydaymagazine.com/RDM2006/RainyDayPhotography/MacroPhoto/RDMPhoto_Macro.htm
In the same vein, as seen in the current Make issue, you could rig a camera lens backwards on the camera to get the macro capability, and then put that to the micro or telescope to take the picture.
See: http://www.makezine.com/06/diyimaging_macro/
In the same vein, as seen in the current Make issue, you could rig a camera lens backwards on the camera to get the macro capability, and then put that to the micro or telescope to take the picture.
See: http://www.makezine.com/06/diyimaging_macro/
I disagree about macro mode. Lock the focus of your camera on infinity (the mountain icon), not macro, and focus the microscope or telescope accordingly. Some cameras may work on macro mode, but it’s not the normal virtual distance of images in an eyepiece. In macro mode the camera is likely to search over a wide focal range; what you want is to stop it from autofocusing so you can focus the telescope by looking at the camera screen.
I’ve gotten great photos of the moon by just holding the camera up to the eyepiece of a telescope.
Michael Covington
Astrophotography for the Amateur
I disagree about macro mode. Lock the focus of your camera on infinity (the mountain icon), not macro, and focus the microscope or telescope accordingly. Some cameras may work on macro mode, but it’s not the normal virtual distance of images in an eyepiece. In macro mode the camera is likely to search over a wide focal range; what you want is to stop it from autofocusing so you can focus the telescope by looking at the camera screen.
I’ve gotten great photos of the moon by just holding the camera up to the eyepiece of a telescope.
Michael Covington
Astrophotography for the Amateur
I’ve been doing this for a while with an old film projector lens turned backwards. I don’t use the macro mode, but zoom in with the full optical and digital zoom.
Some examples here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/culito