That's beautiful Mr. Cyrano! Great job with the stacking, exposure and post processing too! Thanks for taking the time to do that tedious work and for sharing your results.
For anyone who doesn't know what focus stacking is: Begin by focusing starting at the highest or lowest depth of the specimen. We'll just say starting at the highest. Take a picture. Then focus slightly lower. Take an image. Repeat.... A tedious and time consuming process. In this case Mr. Cyrano did that 150 times to produce that image.
Then take the resulting images into focus stacking software that analyzes and aligns them perfectly, combines them and produces a final image.
Why go to all the trouble? Because at those high levels of magnification, in this case 400X, depth of field is extremely shallow. EXTREMELY shallow. Had he not focused at different depths and stacked the images only one very thin slice, like just the very top of the roll would be in focus. Anything lower would be blurry.
Here is an example. On the left a single image. Only a very shallow area of the subject is in focus. On the right a focus stacked image.
Your image Cyrano so very clearly shows why it's called a "rolled edge" and why a rolled edge is dull.
I had been looking at the ME300TZ-2L-10M but couldn't justify the cost and didn't really know what to expect in the image quality. Now I do. Thanks. And, now we know what true 400X optical means for edge microscopy. Looks like true 400X is enough for knife edges.
BTW, most excellent job with the lighting too. Shiny surfaces like steel can be a real hair pulling freak show to photograph. I know from experience not only how important that is but also that it takes time to get it just right.
I tried the best I could and posted images from my cheesy little USB scope, but your AmScope and effort blows them away. (Cry). A real step up from the Dino Scope too. Your image Cyrano is the best I've seen on the Exchange. Please do more! (It's easy to ask somebody else to do work.)
Excellent image, great work and thanks again for sharing!
For anyone who doesn't know what focus stacking is: Begin by focusing starting at the highest or lowest depth of the specimen. We'll just say starting at the highest. Take a picture. Then focus slightly lower. Take an image. Repeat.... A tedious and time consuming process. In this case Mr. Cyrano did that 150 times to produce that image.
Then take the resulting images into focus stacking software that analyzes and aligns them perfectly, combines them and produces a final image.
Why go to all the trouble? Because at those high levels of magnification, in this case 400X, depth of field is extremely shallow. EXTREMELY shallow. Had he not focused at different depths and stacked the images only one very thin slice, like just the very top of the roll would be in focus. Anything lower would be blurry.
Here is an example. On the left a single image. Only a very shallow area of the subject is in focus. On the right a focus stacked image.
Your image Cyrano so very clearly shows why it's called a "rolled edge" and why a rolled edge is dull.
I had been looking at the ME300TZ-2L-10M but couldn't justify the cost and didn't really know what to expect in the image quality. Now I do. Thanks. And, now we know what true 400X optical means for edge microscopy. Looks like true 400X is enough for knife edges.
BTW, most excellent job with the lighting too. Shiny surfaces like steel can be a real hair pulling freak show to photograph. I know from experience not only how important that is but also that it takes time to get it just right.
I tried the best I could and posted images from my cheesy little USB scope, but your AmScope and effort blows them away. (Cry). A real step up from the Dino Scope too. Your image Cyrano is the best I've seen on the Exchange. Please do more! (It's easy to ask somebody else to do work.)
Excellent image, great work and thanks again for sharing!