Upgrade "soapbox" to the microscope

In this topic I will talk about how I made an instrument for microphotographs from an old digicam and a lens from a CD-ROM.

So, it all started with the fact that in the process of implementing the ideas, various variations of the camera (Olympus C-350) with lenses from CD-ROM, DVD-ROM and a couple of others taken from different optics were tried. In terms of magnification and picture quality, CD and DVD-ROM lenses were close, but in the end a CD lens was chosen because of a more convenient design (it was easier to make a frame for it).

In the photo on the right, this lens (not to be confused with an ashtray), photographed through another lens that has a greater focal length, and therefore more suitable for macro photography.

To attach the lens to the camera lens, I made a frame out of foam plastic and painted it with a black marker, for greater opacity:

Already at the beginning of the experiments, it became clear that holding a digital camera, it would not be possible to make a high-quality picture due to strong vibration, therefore a tripod with hydraulic focusing was made from the materials at hand (a pancake sounds).



The tripod is assembled from a piece of plastic pipe as a frame, two syringes of different diameters, a syringe with a larger diameter is used to attach the stage to it, a syringe of smaller diameter to control the movement of the stage. The table itself is cut from a CD-case. To fasten the whole thing to the table, I found a mounting bracket.
In the plastic tube I made 2 holes, on top for the bolt, which the camera was screwed on (by the way, the usual furniture bolt, which I borrowed from the table for the sake of science) was perfect, from the bottom for the mounting bracket.
Syringes connected using a dropper, filling the whole thing with water. The big syringe was, without further ado, tied to the tube with scotch tape.

The result was such a tripod:



Now fasten the soap box to the tripod and the device is ready for microphotographs!


I apologize for the quality of the photo, I had to use the phone.

Here are some photos that were taken during the testing process of the device:

Photos of LCD matrixes, on the left Nokia E51, on the right HP iPAQ hx2190. Mean Chinese for nokii regretted LCD molecules)

Hair from my head (it turned out so creatively because of the need for side lighting)

And the classics are

Onion cells. According to my profane calculations (compared the actual pixel size and the size of it in the photo), the increase reaches x500, although, of course, the useful increase is smaller.
I photograph without flash, illuminating the subject with a pocket flashlight. In order to eliminate fluctuations during the “shutter release” I use the shooting delay function. It is a pity in the C350 there is no disable autofocus, because Fine-tuning the focus with the help of syringes autofocus knocks it a little. The quality of shooting, too, is significantly deteriorated due to spherical aberration, but my knowledge in optics was only enough to add a diaphragm, which did not give a tangible improvement.
One more minus, photographs of opaque objects turn out badly, due to the fact that you have to illuminate them from the side, which leads to such consequences as in a photograph of a hair.

PS In the process of searching for a blog for publication, I stumbled upon a post describing a similar bundle of “telephone camera + DVD lens”, but did not refuse to publish, after all, it describes macro rather than micro.