He is using a Canon R7 mirrorless camera. This is a 35 megapixel, APS-C mirrorless. He also uses the well known Mitutoyo 10x plan APO microscope objective. He uses the infamous Raynox DCR-150 as a relay lens. Notable is that he uses it in the reversed orientation (I have heard recommendations for this alongside claims that it works just as well either way).
He also uses a bellows as a way to obtain variable magnification with the Mitutoyo.
Of particular note is that he uses flash for illumination.
This will certainly yield excellent and predictable color, along with reducing vibration
(camera motion) issues thanks to the incredibly brief flash exposure.
Many people I know avoid flash because they want to see exactly which crystal faces
might be yielding specular reflection, and they generally enjoy the benefit of a
temporally continuous light source to see exactly what is going on.
Here is what he says about using flash:
I know that some of the best micromineral photographers (with the sharpest images) are using flash. It is a challenge at first. However, with fiber optic lighting sources you will reach a plateau in terms of image sharpness. It is strictly due to vibration and exposure settings. In addition, there is the color rendering. The smaller the image the more light you need. It is virtually impossible to achieve the required level of illumination if you are shooting images in the sub-2mm range, even with a halogen fiber light source on the max setting. The only way to compensate is extremely long exposure times or high ISO settings, which are contrary to sharp images.Forget about LED light sources, they suck. Not only are they not bright enough, but the color rendition is a mile off (white LEDs have a royal blue light emitter covered by a white phosphor and very narrow spectral peaks). LED light sources also typically employ pulsed (PWM) dimming. This can actually cause artifacts in your photos.
One thing I would say about the flashes is that you need the capability to conveniently and independently control the flash timing on each flash unit. It is nice having the X2T controller right in front of me. I press a button on top of the unit to select the flash on the LCD screen of the unit, then turn a thumb wheel to modify the flash timing. As I was telling Joe, while shooting test exposure shots, I do most of my photo exposure control with the flash units, not the shutter speed and ISO controls on the camera.
I am also using the Canon app on the computer to control the camera, not pressing buttons on the camera, because I don’t want to move or jar the camera while taking test shots. Then I set the start and stop limits on the Stackshot controller (using my fiber optic modeling light for illumination), shut that light source off, make sure I put the black drape over the setup to block extraneous light, then press start on the Stackshot controller.
Storm was kind enough to send detailed information about equipment he is using, and I wanted to preserve that here for my own reference.
The following image shows the stuff in his optical path:
These are (from left to right):
I model in Fusion 360 and generally export files to the slicer in .3MF format. I exported the file in .3MF, .stp, and .stl. One of those should work. Let me know if you receive this just in case it gets blocked by a firewall.I found that newer Mitutoyo lenses have a slightly larger diameter and thus, I sent you Lens Cap, Large. I have an older Mitutoyo lens that I had to print a smaller lens cap for.
The lens cap prints with an M6 threaded hole for a nylon thumb screw. You can get these on Amazon cheap (M6 x 1, thumbscrew). Stronger than printing one.
Tom's Mineralogy Info / tom@mmto.org