workshop photography

[Chris HeapyParticipant @chrisheapy71135]

For real close-ups I bought one of those inexpensive USB microscopes, it has almost zero DofF but still very useful for imaging at a micro scale.

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, I have a choice of two digital compact cameras or two DSLR's but I mostly use the compacts for posting photos on this forum.

The first digital camera that I ever bought is an Olympus Camedia C-3020 zoom which is a 3.2 MP. It has a macro facility and can focus as close as 200 mm. It was boasting USB auto-connect and 7.5 X seamless zoom optical + digital, which was impressive back in 2002 when I bought it. Still a good camera, but the downside is it uses SmartMedia memory which isn't sold much anywhere now, so every now and again I have to save all the photos somewhere else.

The other compact I have I got in 2006 and it is a Casio Exilm EX-Z70 and is 7.2 MP. The macro facility on this will focus as close as 100 mm and the flash intensity can be adjusted by two positions up and down the normal position. It's a fairly slim camera, only 22 mm at the thickest part and easy to use and handle. This one uses SD cards, so now I have a little pile of full ones, which I might never save anywhere else.

My two DSLR's are Canon's and allthough I have some photos in my albums taken with them, they are for more serious photos, but alas, my favorite zoom lens I have is stuck on the wide angle and has to go away for repair when I get around to packing it up safely.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 26/05/2013 16:17:31

[David LittlewoodParticipant @davidlittlewood51847]

Nick,

Not by any chance a 28-135 IS USM is it? Had two, both had the zoom control crap out.

David

[NJHParticipant @njh]

Hi Nick – I feel your pain!

I have a 70 – 300mm zoom lens bought some years ago in the time of " real" photography and only used a few times. The current lens for my DSLR is a Zeiss 16 – 80mm which is so good it lives on the camera all the time. A while ago they came to replace the weather cock on the church next door. They don't look big from the ground but the vane is about 6ft. long! When the guy came to replace it he was on top of a scaffold tower on top of the church tower! – a photo opportunity I thought so I dug out with the 70-300 to capture that "decisive moment" as the new vane was put into place . I fired off a couple of shots and then the autofocus locked up solid **!!**!!! Expensive shots and, as I've only used it half a dozen times in the last 10 or so years, not worth repairing I guess.

Grrrrr!

Norman

Edited By NJH on 26/05/2013 17:06:28

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi David, no, it's the EFS 17 – 85 mm IS USM. I'm guessing that it's just a screw or something that has come loose and preventing the mechanism travelling, as it will move everso slightly and it feels like it's hitting on somthing else. Luckily the Canon mounts are backwards compatable on both my cameras and I can use my EF 28 – 80 mm ultrasonic lens from my "real" photography camera, as Norman has put it, as an acceptable substitute for the time being.

Hi Norman, don't you just hate it when that happens, like myself yesterday when I got a nice line up on train hauled by a steam loco that was visting in the main line station in the town near me, when somebodys elbow and forearm nudged into view just when I was ready to press the button, had to reframe quickly so as not to miss a reasonable second good shot, good job it was only plodding along slowly so it could then reverse into the station ready for it's return journey.

Regards Nick

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi Chris, those USB microscopes are handy, for checking how close one gets their drilled holes on the scribed mark for example, as shown below.

This is a 4 mm countersunk head machine screw.

Regards Nick.

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, those USB microscopes are good for making those close up photos that you used to see very often years ago, where you had to see if you could tell what the object is. Like this one.

Can you tell what it is yet?

You may only know if you live in Great Britain.

Regards Nick

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 26/05/2013 20:17:06

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

> Can you tell what it is yet?

To coin a phrase! Have you tried photographing a leaf with it yet? Use reflected light and you should be able to see a lumpy landscape of individual cells and hairs.

This is with the macro on my bridge camera (not maximum closeup). Unretouched, just cropped down to 10245 x 768.

Neil

[I.M. OUTAHEREParticipant @i-m-outahere]

I agree the USB Microscope could be very usefull in the Workshop, it would be great or checking out the cutting edges on all sorts of tools especially very small drill bits .
I don't know about the rest of you but i hate it when i get one of those really fine metal splinters in a finger as you can feel it but not see it to remove it – wonder if this would help ?

Ian

[Sam StonesParticipant @samstones42903]

Sandwiched between my tertiary studies, I spent a couple of seasons engaged in a short course in photography. The lecturer told us a tale about an exercise when he was studying for his photographic qualifications.

The exercise was to photograph three brand new steel balls placed together under a conical light tent, and to adjust the lighting to produce the most even illumination possible. Just in case you haven't heard of a light tent, you poke the camera lens through a hole in the top with the camera pointing down vertically. The tent is translucent, and floodlights are placed around the outside of the tent shining inwards.

It was a trick really because as the specified lighting conditions are achieved, the balls disappear.

BTW, my current photographic fun is cleaning up some rather dusty (now digitised) colour slides which I took in Holland in 1962 on Kodachrome (probably 64 ASA). I was using a friend’s Leica M4, mostly hand-held, and although the slides have tended to fade slightly towards a blue tint, with Adobe Photoshop CS3, I’ve been able to bring some of them back to life.

If you want/need to use flash, better results are obtained with the flash off the camera. Depending upon your subject, start with the flash about 45 degree to the right (or left), AND raised by about the same angle to the vertical.

It falls under the category of modelling, so (tongue in cheek ), it’s not too far off model engineering.

Regards to all,

Sam

[David LittlewoodParticipant @davidlittlewood51847]

Sam,

How did you go about digitising the Kodachromes? I ask because I recently spent some time doing quite a few of mine; I found them hard to scan (much harder to get the colours to come out accurately) than E6 films. Eventually I found the only satisfactory method was to photograph them using a Bowens Illumitran slide duplicator.

As for the blue tint, Kodachrome is often regarded as an exceptionally stable slide film. This is true is if is kept wholly in the dark, but on exposure to light it is really very susceptible. Even a few minutes being illuminated in a slide projector causes noticeable deterioration.

David

[David LittlewoodParticipant @davidlittlewood51847]

Posted by SLOTDRILLER on 27/05/2013 06:30:58:

I agree the USB Microscope could be very usefull in the Workshop, it would be great or checking out the cutting edges on all sorts of tools especially very small drill bits .
I don't know about the rest of you but i hate it when i get one of those really fine metal splinters in a finger as you can feel it but not see it to remove it – wonder if this would help ?

Ian

I do have a USB microscope, and it does what is supposed to do quite well. However, for vastly better convenience and ease of use (and also much better image quality) you should try using a decent optical stereo microscope. The quality will blow you away compared with any USB microscope I have seen, and you don't need a computer to use it!

~David

[Grizzly bearParticipant @grizzlybear]

Hello Everyone, Talking of shrapnel,in ones fingers, a pair of binoculars used in reverse are very good.One eye only, unless you have very wide spaced eyes. You need to get very close to your target. Regards, Bear..

[Roderick JenkinsParticipant @roderickjenkins93242]

Posted by David Littlewood on 27/05/2013 13:36:58:

Posted by SLOTDRILLER on 27/05/2013 06:30:58:

I agree the USB Microscope could be very usefull in the Workshop, it would be great or checking out the cutting edges on all sorts of tools especially very small drill bits .
I don't know about the rest of you but i hate it when i get one of those really fine metal splinters in a finger as you can feel it but not see it to remove it – wonder if this would help ?

Ian

I do have a USB microscope, and it does what is supposed to do quite well. However, for vastly better convenience and ease of use (and also much better image quality) you should try using a decent optical stereo microscope. The quality will blow you away compared with any USB microscope I have seen, and you don't need a computer to use it!

~David

When I retired recently I knew that I would miss the stereo microscopes at work, partly for the reasons Ian mentions. My old colleagues very kindly gave me an Amazon token and I bought one of these . The quality, for the price, is astonishingly good and I also got a photo adaptor for one of the eyepieces.

Rod

[Sam StonesParticipant @samstones42903]

Hi David L and Gentlemen,

I'll respond tomorrow, with a somewhat lengthy posting and some photographs.

It's tea time in Melbourne, and I'm ready for a rest.

Regards to all,

Sam

[Raymond GriffinParticipant @raymondgriffin40985]

Hi all,

For me, good lighting is so important for taking photographs. A high level of light is needed so that reasonable speeds and/or small apertures that give a good depth of focus can be used. Also some form of modelling light is helpful to give an impression of depth and dimension. My best investment recently on this front is a cheap self-contained LED light source that gives plenty of illumination at the colour temperature of daylight. It is a 64 LED photographic light available from Amazon UK for £16.99. The 4 x AA batteries last a long time. It is very useful for photography as the effect of moving the light around can easily be seen on the screen of digital cameras. I use a mixture of tungsten lamps, reflected daylight and the 64 LED; letting the auto white balance of the camera find the best setting. My camera is a Canon digital Ixus 800 which copes with white balance quite well. I gather that all digital cameras are not the same in this respect. In that case it is best to set the controls to daylight, tungsten etc. and see what looks best on the screen. I also use the 64 LED as a work light on the lathe and mill. For this, the light is held on a magnetic base with swivel arms and placed near to the work. It is probably the most useful work light that I have.

I use a tripod to take photographs as the level of light indoors almost always results in slow shutter speeds. I find it helpful to keep the camera mounted on a tripod in the workshop to prevent me being lazy and attempt to snatch hand held shots.

For most pictures, I try to get as far away from the subject as my telephoto lens will accommodate. This helps to avoid distortion and can give a larger depth of field. If I remember correctly, “glamour” photographers use a medium telephoto some distance away from the subject for the same reason. Needless to say, sometimes the macro setting on the camera is required for small objects. This introduces some distortion with my camera so I try to avoid it if possible.

I certainly agree with the positive comments on USB microscopes and perhaps some will have read my observation on the topic in Model Engineer No. 4454 pages 574-577. However, I agree that the stereo microscope gives a vastly superior image and have one set up permanently on my mill.

Happy snapping

Ray

[Sam StonesParticipant @samstones42903]

Hi Everyone,

This has turned out to be an even longer (epic?) postings. As a result, I have been obliged to split this post into two or three parts, so here goes.

Part 1

To pick up from previous comments which were started by SLOTDRILLER Ian four days ago, had I known about the colour deterioration due to light exposure, perhaps I wouldn’t have projected my colour slides quite so often. Upon reflection (pun?), some of my slides were taken while I was stationed at RAF Nicosia (Cyprus) c1957-58 and would therefore be at least fifty-five years old. And yet, they don’t seem to have suffered the same amount of colour loss when compared with those taken in Holland c.1962.

In my early enthusiasm of the late fifties, I protected many of my slides by placing them between glass. About two hundred in all received this treatment. They were stored in a couple of partitioned slide boxes which were fitted snugly inside a larger box along with my projector. Light penetration was thus minimal. Perhaps being kept in a garage for forty plus years (while subjected to the fluctuations of our Melbourne temperatures and humidity), was responsible for some of the deterioration. As I began to digitise my slides, I found and had to contend with lots of dust, and tiny hints of fungal attack, while Newton had left quite a few of his rings.

Although I carefully disassembled and cleaned those slides sandwiched between glass, most of the remaining `grime’ was still transferred as part of the image during digitising. It was a relatively easy job to remove the spots by way of the `Healing Brush Tool’ and the `Spot Healing Brush Tool’ courtesy of Adobe Photoshop CS3. Much easier than the old way of a painstaking use of spotting brush and spotting ink. Confetti on black and white wedding pictures for example.

You can see what I mean from these two versions, `Before’ and `After’.

Continued in Part 2

[Sam StonesParticipant @samstones42903]

Part 2

Here’s my continuation of Part 1.

I rather like Raymond G’s comments about the 64 LED photographic lights. One of the difficulties with flash off the camera, is knowing where to position the flash light(s) for best modelling.

As for my actual digitising as requested by David Littlewood, I thought it better to describe my setup, especially since building equipment etc. is the primary topic of ME.

I decided upon using my (at the time – newly purchased) 100mm macro lens and to photograph the slides directly. You can see from the setup that the lens was `buried’ inside a cardboard tube, thus while avoiding extraneous light. It did however remove access for manual focussing. This was not really an issue since the Canon lens was equipped with ultrasonic auto-focus. Wonderful stuff!

With a very limited workshop, I set about building (more like assembling) a slide copier. My photographs show the physical set up. To capture the whole setup and how the camera was positioned, I had to take a couple of pictures through a low cost digital camera, hence the poorer quality images.

The basic parts of the setup are a slide carrier `borrowed’ from my now rather ancient slide projector; a large diameter (about 95mm) cardboard post-office document tube with its plastic end caps; and a couple of MDF drinks coasters. These latter items were used to pack the underside of the camera until the centre-lines of camera and slides were properly lined up and square. All this was mounted onto a larger piece of MDF, while a piece of wooden dowel served to locate the camera via its 1/4" Whit tripod hole.

With the post-office tube, the camera to slide distance (minus the lens), turned out to be close to 320mm. However, for the lens to fit properly and be supported without any interference with the focussing mechanism, a shorter length (about 230mm) of tube was necessary.

Single central holes were cut into the two polyethylene tube end caps. One hole was about 45mm for the slide-carrier end (could have been slightly larger, but not critical), and one about 70mm into which the lens could slide neatly and would fully locate both the lens and the camera. This latter task was accomplished carefully by hand using a sharp scalpel. It should be emphasised that the plastic end caps are made from high-density polyethylene, which requires a fair degree of skill and extreme care to allow for this material’s very slippery nature. Be very careful if you take on this task, it’s easy for the knife/scalpel to slip.

Continued in Part 3

[Sam StonesParticipant @samstones42903]

Part 3

The next part of the exercise was to arrange some bits of wood as a frame, onto which I could mount the slide carrier and some form of light diffuser. With a couple of Speedlites (flash guns) in my Canon camera kit, I planned to back illuminate the slides through a piece of thin, white, plastic sheet. The flash/camera link was set to master/slave, with a wireless Speedlite transmitter sitting on top of the camera.

With the arrangement as described in Part 2, it takes very little time to both set up and to take pictures. Focus and exposure are fully automatic, so there is little else to do but keep feeding slides into the slide carrier and pressing the cable release. For the number of slides I needed to digitise, it probably took me longer to build the device than it did to take the photographs.

In order to show the versatility of the CS3 Photoshop software (not that I have any commercial interests), I have included a `before and after picture’ in another album entitled `Workshop Photography’ (to suit this thread). To add a little more explanation, especially since my over-night memory has improved, the Cyprus slide of the swimming pool (RAF Nicosia), was installed between glass, while the ship and tug picture (taken in Oct ‘62) remained in its original cardboard mount.

Here's the Ship and tug, before and after Photoshop once again, this time as a means of comparing the original colouring renderings with the Nicosia swimming pool.

The swimming pool – RAF Nicosia Oct ‘62

Perhaps this (lack of protection) was responsible for the colour deterioration. I don’t know!

Regards to all,

Sam

Phew!!!

[Raymond GriffinParticipant @raymondgriffin40985]

Hello Sam,

I also know the problems of slide deterioration. I have a vast collection of histopathology slides that I used for teaching over the years. They were recorded with light and electron microscopes onto colour film, B&W film and in the early days 2X2 glass plates. I have a Nikon Coolscan negative scanner that yields amazing results. Unfortunately, they are no longer manufactured. I was keen to digitise my collection for posterity, but soon found that many if not most had dust, moulds etc. in inconvenient spots in spite of the fact that they have been kept in plastic slide holders. The task of retouching is so onerous that I have given up except on rare slides that I use from time to time. Unfortunately, it appears that the old enemies of dust, scratches and moulds win: regardless of the kit used for copying.

The results that you show are most impressive and show a lot of skill and attention.

Ray

[David LittlewoodParticipant @davidlittlewood51847]

Back in the dim and distant past (about 15 years ago) in the later days of film photography, as I was a very extensive user of transparency film, I bought a copy of Wilhelm's "The Permanence and Care of Color Photographs". Rather expensive, but very comprehensive, and with lots of interesting detail about the scandals of mass produced material with very poor keeping properties. If you are interested in looking after old film, try to get hold of a copy, though it may be a bit out of date now.

The gist is that all film material deteriorates, the only difference is the speed. Kodachrome is excellent in the dark, terrible in light. Later E6 films (especially Fujichromes) are nearly as good as Kodachromes in the dark, and vastly better (in fact the best of all) in the light. I switched entirely to Fujichrome…

I do find E6 film is also easier to scan properly. Even using a fairly high level scanner (Nikon Super Coolscan 5000) with special settings for Kodachrome, the colours always seem to come out wrong for me, in a way I can never correct with Photoshop. Maybe I just haven't tried long enough, I just gave up and used a slide duplicator, which worked much better.

Sam, your setup is functionally just the same as mine, just a lot cheaper, and I guess a lot fiddlier (you can't have everything). The only extra function I have on the Illumitran is the contrast control, which helps prevent contrast increase. Even this is a lot less important when the end product is a digital file which you can manipulate anyway.

David

Edited By David Littlewood on 29/05/2013 13:02:51

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

I have an old Minolta slide scanner with Kodak ICE. This is a wonderful (but painfully slow) process for slides you can't get 100% clean. A pre-scan is made using infra red, this identifies any dirt on the slide/negative and makes a map of it (the IR passes through black parts of the image, but not dirt).

The full scan is then done and some clever algorithms use the colour gradients around the specks of dust, scratches etc. and the magivcally disappear – at least they disappear with a facility far better than you could do it by manual retouching, at least for more than the odd speck on a plain background.

If you have such issues, see if you can find a scanner with ICE (you WILL need a lot of patience – it can take 20 minutes to scan a very dusty slide with comelx content)

Neil

[Sam StonesParticipant @samstones42903]

Thanks for your comments Neil.

I hadn’t realised that this ICE process (Image Correction and Enhancement) was possible/existed. My `Head-in-the-Sand’ perhaps.

However, to satisfy my own curiosity, I found a couple of interesting articles, which can be viewed via the links below.

Although appearing to be a translation into English by ScanDig, and a (sales) lead-in to having ones slides digitised, the first one explains some of the issues, especially about Kodachrome. It also explains to some extent why we can see a sort of surface rippling or undulation on the backs of the Kodachrome slides.

Some of the technology is explained to a lesser extent in the second http.

Thanks again for bringing this to our attention.

Best regards,

Sam

**LINK**

**LINK**

 

Edited By Sam Stones on 31/05/2013 00:11:14

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, my Nikon Coolscan has digital ICE and like Neil says you can use a prescan to crop in the process but scaning with the ICE on is a slow process but it really does work well.

The downside of my machine is it is not upgradeable past Windows 2000, so I have a computer dedicated just for this sccanner.

Regards Nick.

[Raymond GriffinParticipant @raymondgriffin40985]

Hello all,

The useful and helpful comments above highlight the great value of these threads. Where else would you find such a breadth and depth of useful knowledge? I have a copy of the Nikon Scan programme that came with the Coolscan V. and it includes digital ICE. Over time, I have moved through Windows 7 and am now on Windows 8. For me, Win 8 is the best of the Windows series by a long way, in spite of the adverse comments in the media. Unfortunately, as noted by Nick, the Nikon software is not compatible with current Windows software. I gather that Nikon have no intention of upgrading it any further as they no longer make these instruments. I now use Vuescan software available on the Internet. There is a free version but I paid for the professional version as it is for life and cheap. It works well with my flatbed scanner and the Coolscan; a disadvantage is that it does not support digital ICE. Sam’s links to Kodachrome are interesting as my Coolscan has a “Kodachome” setting, and many of my slides are classic Kodachromes in a card mount.

The book "The Permanence and Care of Color Photographs" is available from Amazon.co.uk; a new copy is a bit expensive for, but at £15 for a used version seems good value for a specialist book and not much more than the cost of a pizza.

I have an old laptop in the workshop running Windows XP. It is used for my USB microscope and gets taken to local model exhibitions where Powerpoint shows demonstrate the construction of some of my steam engines. It may be useful to put the Nikon software onto that one, for the Coolscan; to make a return to digital ICE.

Regards

Ray

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