Microphotography; My Experience With Achieving Photos With Micro Lenses

As many probably already know, mastering photography using a fully adjustable camera can be difficult enough. However, microphotography is more difficult. It is downright daunting. However, here are some techniques that can greatly help with anyone who decides to delve into this exploration into the microscopic universe. First let's talk about photography using a microscope. SLR cameras may seem great for taking photos through a microscope. However, that is not really how it is. In fact, this method will practically always result in images which are blurry; Why? Because at microscopic scales, there is lots of light scattering, which means that there is a really high level of chromatic aberration. So, how would we possibly solve such a problem? Well, I know from previous experience that cameras with smaller sensors are better for this. At least my compact camera seemed to work the best. Wait a minute; because it might not be the sensor after all. Instead, it is the fact that when using the SLR, I detached the lens, whereas in the compact camera I had to use the lens. And with an SLR camera, this is practically impossible. Why? Because an SLR camera has a very large lens as compared to a compact camera. And because of this, it is extremely tedious work to align the camera with the microscope, as well as the fact that doing so means risking damaging the lens. Although it is still somewhat difficult with a compact camera, I personally think that, despite generally lower image quality, this is a far better camera system to use, as long as the lens has the proper zoom capability. In fact, the highest image quality comes from prime lenses with a focal length of approximately 50mm, although I would say that it probably needs to be more like 80mm. Now we move on to using a camera phone. This should work, at least everything seems to add up initially. However, it doesn't. See, the field of view will probably not fill the frame, meaning that there is an excessive amount of vignetting in the final image. Unless you have a zoom lens, of course. Alright; now let's talk about something that I have discovered proves to be  really successful, besides using a compact camera with a microscope; it is called the "camera phone microscope". Well...at least that's my fancy way of calling it. The issue of vignetting is also a major factor, even with this setup. However, I have discovered that, surprisingly, there is no image degradation at the edges of the frame. And it seems to produce superb image quality, which is not really surprising, although that is great news. Although this might not seem like it is all that practical initially, this technique can definitely produce some astounding results. With a much larger lens, or field of view, I'm pretty confident that you could even fill the frame. If you cannot afford, or find, a larger lens, (which would be me), then you can perfect the process. And by perfection, what I'm trying to get across, is that you can improvise. And that is what makes all of this tinkering really neat. What I have been wondering is what kind of setup I could construct so that I could keep the microscope lens on the camera at all times without having to deal with the problem of inherent light leakage. Then, once that is accomplished, we could move on to the next. And this would be constructing a mount which could move the camera parallel, left & right, as well as up and down. This would be much akin to the process of creating a panorama. However, because of the issue of shifting focus with which microphotography, even macro photography involves itself with, we need to create something that would help to create panoramas in which the images are aligned in a gridlike pattern. In other words, the camera needs to be shifted in only two dimensions while creating the images needed for the final composite image. This would really be something; for now we could create ultra high quality photos, especially since we can go into Photoshop and use focus stacking, albeit a large amount of digital memory will be needed. And even though the camera might only see a small amount of the entire field of view, what's most critical and helpful is the fact that there is no more chromatic aberration, and we can still create seemless panoramas, despite this fact. That is, if we are knowledgeable enough on how to solve such issues. Using a compact camera might work even better, given that the lens can achieve a high enough magnification. Here are some sample of my work using the camera from an ipod, attached to a 4x lens from a microscope. Now, these images could have come out far better, given that instead of using the ipod, we could use a fully adjustable camera, as well as higher format.