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Improving your microphotographs

POWER POINT IN THE CLASSROOM
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http://www.actden.com/pp/

Ten easy steps to getting your tumors "on the internet": I have also noted that some cases are discussed here without reference to the internet location of the image. I will now try to give a crash course in how to put your tumors on the internet, i.e., "FTP to a server". This will enable you to index your images with a single URL line, or "link", or "http" line, for everybody to see, rather than rudely tieing up somebody's mailbox downloading time by attaching the image as an email attachment.

From 8 years of experience with Dr. Alvira and Dr. Shireman in presenting ASCP workshops on this topic, I already know that the majority of you have experience with, and access to, Netscape, although somewhat more than 50% of you are now using the Microsoft Browser.

You need the NETSCAPE browser to do the following:

1) Go online.

2) Go get the latest Netscape Communicator browser. Open it up.

3) Click the "Netscape Composer" button, which is the rightmost lowermost corner button, OR, from the keyboard, press "Ctrl-4".

4) Press the "Insert", then "Image..." button from the top command bar.

5) Press the "Choose File..." button, the a file requester window pops up, and find the directory that your image file is in (it MUST be a

JPG image), highlight the file, then press the "Open" button.

6) You have now created a Web Page with your image on it.

7) Now go to the "File" button and select the "Publish..." option.

8) There are now three boxes you must carefully fill in, the the "Publish" window which pops up:

a) "HTTP or FTP Location to publish to:" (this MUST be an exact ftp location, and you must contact your ISP, or Internet Service Provider, for this ftp location).

b) "User name:" (which is often the SAME user name you use to get on the internet).

c) "Password:" (which is often the SAME password you use to get on the internet).

9) Hit the "OK" button after filling in these three boxes.

10) Your JPG tumor image file is now "on the internet" and can be addressed as a single "http" line.

The real beauty of this whole process is that it allows you to then email the whole world, including all of your pathologist friends, or this forum, and simply write in the "http" location of the image for everybody to see and comment upon. You can also put the "http" line of your image in your pathology reports for all surgeons and families to see as well! Forget the high priced ticket baloney surrounding "telepathology" hardware. This education is all you need and it's FREE!

John R. Minarcik, MD

I am disappointed at the decision of Photopoint to start charging. The other free services that come to mind are : Photoloft (http://www.photoloft.com ) ,and Yahoo! Photos (http://photos.yahoo.com ) .

There are many others:

Web Photos <http://www.webphotos.com/>
Zing <http://www.zing.com/>
Club Photo <http://www.clubphoto.com/>
Gatherround <http://www.gatherround.com/>
Cartogra <http://www.cartogra.com/>
Digital Fridge <http://www.thedigitalfridge.com/>
Picture Trail <http://www.picturetrail.com/>
Foto Time <http://www.fototime.com/>
Photo Fun <http://www.photofun.com/>

Sate Hamza, M.D. <http://peir.path.uab.edu>

I think the two imoprtant features to consider when looking at data projectors are the brightness (how many ANSI lumens?) and the resolution (pixels) .. We have several here that we can use. One of them is the Epson PowerLite 505c (1100 ANSI lumens, and SVGA "800x600" resolution)

<http://www.presentingsolutions.com/productdetails.asp?itemid=191&manuf=36>http://www.presentingsolutions.com/productdetails.asp?itemid=191&manuf=36

The higher the ANSI lumens and the resolution, the higher the price. The PowerLite 505c works pretty good. It is about $3400. I think other brands with comparable features are around the same price. From the link above you can go to the Projectors section and choose the brand and the resolution and you'll get several suggetions.

Sate Hamza, M.D.

After Nikon disappointedly abandoned the split swivel body design and the 28 mm threaded lens ring in its Nikon Coolpix 5000, it has now returned to those two features in its new Nikon Coolpix 4500. This is the first Coolpix outside the Coolpix 9xx line to have those two features together. And as in the older Coolpix 9xx cousins, the lens has fixed internal focusing. Just from looking at it, the camera will almost certainly work great for taking pictures through the microscopic eyepiece.

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2002_reviews/nikon4500.html

The camera is a little more compact compared to the Coolpix 995 and has a higher resolution effective CCD (4 megapixel). I don't see other differences that might be of significance to us in Pathology. The menu is expanded with many new "pre-programmed" modes (including Night Portrait, and Night Landscape). You can also record movies with sound (up to 35 seconds)(How are we going to use that? .. Cheer loudly when shooting a spirochetes dancing under the microscope?). And for those who want a 5 megapixel camera that looks like SLR cameras, Nikon is releasing its new Nikon Coolpix 5700. This is the second generation of the Coolpic 5xxx line. The camera seems to be a powerful one, but I'm not too excited about it as we cannot use it to take pictures directly from the eyepiece.

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2002_reviews/nikon5700.html

Looks like Nikon's Coolpix Fever will never end. We should expect a drop in the Coolpix 9xx line cameras when the new ones are released. My Coolpix 950 now looks too ancient!

I am taking photos now through the eyepiece of an Olympus BX41. I have heard different recommendations regarding the best settings for optimal photomicrography. I have the following settings now on the Coolpix 995 and the microscopic pictures are coming out great ...

http://peir.net/wwwshamza/NC995Micro.jpg

I also zoom only as needed to avoid vignetting. And as you see the settings that I use are different from the one recommended by Nikon for their microscope adapter.

See http://www.nikonusa.com/pdf/CoolpixSeriesMtngInstructions.pdf

Most of the time I am using Macro focus mode when taking photos through the eyepiece and they are coming out clear and in focus most of the time. These settings seem to work with the BX41 that I am using. I may have to change the focus mode sometimes on other microscopes.

Sate Hamza, M.D.

I am taking photos now through the eyepiece of an Olympus BX41. I have heard
different recommendations regarding the best settings for optimal
photomicrography. I have the following settings now on the Coolpix 995 and
the microscopic pictures are coming out great ...

http://peir.net/wwwshamza/NC995Micro.jpg

I also do what Dr. Ferlisi mentioned. I zoom only as needed to avoid vignetting.
And as you see the settings that I use are different from the ones
recommended by Nikon for their microscope adapter

(See http://www.nikonusa.com/pdf/CoolpixSeriesMtngInstructions.pdf )..
Most of the time I am using Macro focus mode when taking photos through the
eyepiece and they are coming out clear and in focus most of the time. These
settings seem to work with the BX41 that I am using. I may have to change
the focus mode sometimes on other microscopes.
Dr. Breining,

I enjoyed reading your message, and I envy you for having the Coolpix 4500 already :)
Does the Coolpix 4500 do any better than the 995 through the eyepiece? ...
Did you try the other pre-programmed settings in the 4500? . I have not been
very satisfied with the results of imaging immunofluorescence slides, for
example through the eyepiece. One needs prolonged exposure times and it is
hard to remain steady for that long ...
Has anyone used the Coolpix to take immunofluorescence pictures, and if so
what are your settings ?
The best picture I took of a slide in a dim-lighting setting has been of the
apple green birenfringence of a congo red-stained slide of amyloidosis ...

Sate Hamza, M.D.
http://PEIR.net/residents

The camera that has had a lot of discussion on the patho-l server is the

Nikon Coolpix 995. A lot of pathologists seem to have had a lot of

experience with this camera. Adapters are available to fit this one to the

microscope that are known to be easy to use and work well. The swivel

feature is nice, because you can turn the little monitor/viewfinder so you

can see it while sitting in your chair. It has the capability of being

hooked up to a TV, so that you have a much larger, easier to use

monitor/viewfinder for framing and focusing. If you want, you can do tumor

boards straight from the glass slides by bringing the microscope and camera

and TV to the tumor board -- you move the slide around and the image on the

TV is about the same image you would see through the eyepieces. The camera

can also be used just as well for gross photography or general photography,

like snapshots of people or landscapes. This camera is no longer made by

Nikon, but you might be able to find one used, or find a retailer that still

has one new. The replacement for the 995 is the Nikon Coolpix 4500, which

does everything the 995 did, and the same attachments fit the same as on the

995. Cost for the Coolpix 4500 is about $700 new retail, and it should be

available at just about any camera store or camera website. We got ours

from Ritz Camera, www.ritzcamera.com

The camera will actually work if just held up to the eyepiece, but it is

difficult to hold it in the right alignment and depending on the light, it

might require an exposure time long enough that you can't do it handheld

without blurring from camera shake. You could try using a tripod to get

around this, but this would be quite a bit of trouble to set up the tripod

each time and get it aligned. There is an easier better way that doesn't

cost too much. Thales Optem is a company that makes an eyepiece adapter

that fits this camera. The adapter looks like an eyepiece, and actually it

is just an eyepiece that has a threaded outside edge. You screw this

eyepiece onto the the filter ring of the camera (easy to do, obvious how to

do it, and even the clumsy can do this), then you take out one of the

microscope eyepieces and replace it with this eyepiece that has the camera

attached to it. To make the image fill the frame, you zoom the camera in a

little bit. Now you are ready to take pictures. It really is pretty easy.

The eyepiece adapter is made to fit 23 mm eyepiece tubes, which is what

older Olympus scopes had. The newer Olympus scopes have 30 mm eyepiece

tubes. For the 30 mm eyepiece tubes, you need an adapter for the adapter,

also available from Thales Optem. With the eyepiece adapter, you can use

the camera on any of the microscopes in the lab, so it is possible for the

one unit to be passed around among pathologists, or even by other

departments like microbiology or hematology. The camera can be used in the

easy auto-everything mode, or you can switch over to manual and do

everything yourself.

Thales Optem contact numbers:

Thales Optem

78 Schuyler Baldwin Drive

Fairport, New York, USA 14450-9196

Ph: 585.223.2370 Fax: 585.223.3413

e-mail: marketing@thales-optem.com

www.thales-optem.com

I have used it for over a year now for Tumor Boards and it works great. The only caveat I'd offer is that you do any image manipulations of color, rotation, and such BEFORE inserting into the ppt presentation. I tried to rotate one image of a group 90 degrees after-the-fact and it rotated all the images.

As a matter of disclosure, I routinely take my digital photos for Tumor Board with a CoolPix 900 set at XGA size and "fine" compression level. This has worked extremely well and I never have had memory problems. And nothing but kudos from the clinicians!

Greg Smith, M.D.
St. Mark's Hospital Pathology
Salt Lake City, UT

I enjoyed reading the comments of all in this thread. I have been doing all-digital presentations (including tumor board) for several years now
(last time in today's tumor board conference). More recently, I have been using the Nikon Coolpix 995 exclusively for image capture. I take the pictures in Fine resolution (2048x1536) (~1 MB each) (these are the ones I keep or make prints from, if needed). I take more than a hundred pictures at a time so I can pick and choose or compile composites. Then I batch resize them using IrfanView to 50% of the original size (they can be resized more than that, of course)(To edit individual images, I also use Microsoft Photo Editor). I end up with images of a 1024x768 resolution and sizes ranging between 100 KB and 200 KB depending on the level of detail in the picture. These are the ones that I insert in PowerPoint. I have seen colleagues sometimes copy and paste images from other windows (including web pages) into powerpoint slides and end up with huge size presentations. Like several Patho-lers have pointed out, I take advantage of PowerPoint's compression algorithms by inserting the images. I don't think it's a good idea to insert images into powerpoint without compression or without resizing. Inserting a 1 MB image into PowerPoint is really an overkill and is more likely to result in all kinds of known complications when showing the presentation. No PowerPoint presentation should ever be 100 MB (as mentioned in one of the messages) in size in my opinion.

Out of curiosity, I counted the number of images I have in today's tumor board presentation. It has ~130 images. The size of the presentation was only 12.5 MB. I also like to put many pictures in one PPT slide. I feel composites are more informative and deliver the idea faster. In one glance you give the idea that you might have otherwise used 8 consecutive slides to deliver. I like to combine gross pictures with pictures of the sections on the slides with microscopic images. Sometimes I feel the section on the slide has more interesting information to the surgeon than say, looking at the yet-another adenocarcinoma under the microscope. The section may show him how the tumor was really full thickness and how it is extending all the way to the deep margin. An extra microscopic shot will confirm to him that the tumor is indeed at the margin. He really does not care about the nuclear features of the tumor cells (in 99 % of cases). Even if the section on the slide is not that informative, I like to use it as a map or a guide to the microscopic pictures (e.g. Here is the tumor nodule on the slide. You can see it has dark purple areas and faint pink areas. Let's now look at those under the microscope).

Here are a couple of examples of how recent slides looked like

http://peir.net/wwwshamza/TumorBoard1.jpg

(From a previous slide, they know the specimens consisted of two portions in one container. In this slide, they can see that the glass slide is from the first portion, showing the things presented in the micro pictures)

http://peir.net/wwwshamza/TumorBoard2.jpg

(This slide summarizes all the immunos done on the cytospin block from one EUS-FNA specimen. Even the actual positive controls are included)

I find that a picture of the actual specimen as it was received (not after it has been cut and groomed) is a nice introduction to the specimen to the surgeon (i.e. here is what you gave us .. that's what it looked like ... now, let me tell you what I did and what I found.) I also find previous imaging pictures as nice introductions (e.g. remember that nodule on CT that measured 2.0 cm and the radiologist called it so-and-so? ... Well let me show you what it looked like under the microscope [and here I start my pathologic features attack]). Here is a slide with a similar scenario. It illustrates using a radiologic image with which the surgeon is already pretty familiar with to deliver information to him regarding the case.

http://peir.net/wwwshamza/TumorBoard3.jpg

I know I may be trying to oversimplify things, but I feel that this sometimes helps in making the information delivery process smoother and apparently more enjoyable to the recipient. Even if I was in a rush, I would prefer to throw 4 pictures in one PPT slide and show that at once rather than project 4 separate slides in succession

http://peir.net/wwwshamza/TumorBoard4.jpg

Actually, I'm now thinking that the batch import program shared on this thread might also be useful even if we wanted to put multiple images in one slide. We can import all the images to PowerPoint and then move the images from one slide to another. Moving images from a slide to the other is easier than inserting each image separately.

Thanks to all who have contribulted to this thread .. Sate

Sate Hamza, M.D. http://PEIR.net/residents

There's a nifty utility for Windows which facilitates importing and resizing images to fit the slide window in Powerpoint:

http://www.consumerdvreviews.com/pptimport/

I bet there are such utilities for Mac too.

Joaquim Le

Porto, Portugal

I've done a number of presentations with 10+ 400kb images from the Coolpix 950. I've never reduced the images in size and never encountered the problems that you've described. The trainees have also produced presentations on a machine with only 32MB of RAM, but I've a feeling they resize the images (with IrfanView) http://www.irfanview.com before incorporating them. I agree that IrfanView http://www.irfanview.com/ is a great little piece of freeware, taht can resize, rename and even do a slideshow.

Also, each image has to be sized by hand to fit the screen. There has to be a better way. Any ideas?

I agree that this is a PITA, but I've lived with it until now. I look forward to trying Joaquim Le's suggestion of PPT import.

Dr David A. Agbamu,

Consultant Histopathologist,

Arrowe Park Hospital, UK.

Last-modified: 2001/01/20

FAQ page for rec.photo.digital which contains answers to many questions regarding digital photography.

http://rpdfaq.50megs.com/

1. K. Micklem and J. Sanderson. Current Diagnostic in Pathology (2001) 7, 131-140.

2. American Jounal of surgical pathology del ano 1999, numero 12 de diciembre, paginas 1555-1558.

Conferencia Invitada: IV CONGRESO VIRTUAL HISPANOAMERICANO DE ANATOMÍA PATOLÓGICA

http://conganat.uninet.edu/CONFERENCIAS/Alvira/index.html

http://www.optemintl.com/standard/dca/index.htm

http://www.optemintl.com/standard/dca/index.htm

http://www.tumorboard.com/Manual/manual2k.htm

http://images.google.com (How to get images)

http://images.google.com/help/faq_images.html (Additional information on the above)

Mount any Camcorder or Digital Camera with lens threads onto any Spotting Scope / Telescope / Microscope

pre-production prototype shown below - the production units are anodised black

http://www.eagleeyeuk.com/

1) Buy a standard size eyepiece from World Precision Instruments, Inc., (941) 371-1003. This is part #500793. It costs $320. It is a regular eyepiece which fits any standard microscope binocular headpiece, BUT has THREADS on the eyeball end of it which easily screws into the front of any CoolPix, like this ------->[Image 1]

2) Voila! You can now stick that eyepiece into any microscope binocular headpiece and snap digital microphotos the EXACT same way you take regular CoolPix photos. In addition, you can attach a wire which comes standard with any CoolPix between the camera and any TV or VCR video-IN plug (standard RCA-type), and your coolpix is now a realtimevideomicroscopy unit as well!

3) If you want to mount your CoolPix to the center post of your BH-2, instead, buy, for an additional $95, also from World Precision Instruments Inc., (941) 371-1003, part #500118, a gizmo called a

"C-MOUNT" for a BH-2, which looks like this this---------->[Image 2] unassembled, and after it is easily assembled (no directions required), it looks like this-------------------------------->[Image 3]

Can life get much simpler?

J. Minarcik, MD <minarcik@gate.net>

Well, I took the plunge and bought an Olympus C-4040Z digital camera, which is about the same price-point as the Nikon 995. I have an older trinocular Olympus BH-2 and I splurged on the Olympus brand connectors to the camera port (If anyone is interested, I can provide part numbers). The hookup is easy and there are instructions with the parts.

One of the Patho-L contributors said she looks at the image from her Nikon on a TV and I wanted to do this as well. I upgraded my PC (a 3 year old home-brew Pentium III) with an ATI All-in-Wonder video card. The camera plugs into the video port on this card and I can see the camera monitor screen on my PC Monitor. Handy for focusing and composing the shots, and the usual read out of shutter speed etc is also visible in real time, before you take the photo. There is no control over the camera, but it is a lot more convenient than standing up to look at the monitor screen on the camera.

The Olympus camera comes with a remote control as a standard item and it works great. There is also a USB out to download the shots.

The only extra camera part needed is a power supply (unless you like recharging batteries).

Olympus claims a 'Panorama' function that allows one to stitch various shots together. This sounds like it could be useful for low power survey shots of a slide. They also bundle software that serves for image clean ups and cataloging. I have only played a little with this.

White balance and vignetting are a little bit of a challenge - I have taken a total of 10 photomicrographs with the x2 objective and some are OK, while others are not, so I have some learning to do here.

This is the first digicam I have owned, so I cannot offer a comparison to Nikon. However, it works for photomicrographs and family shots with minimal learning. I went with Olympus because it was 'guaranteed' to mate with the older BH-2 that I am married to.

Murray Treloar MD

Oshawa Ontario Canada

News, Reviews, Cameras, Timeline, Buying Guide, Side by Side, Galleries. Forums, Search, Learn, Glossary, Feedback, Newsletter, Links

Merchandise, About Digital Camera Product Reviews / Previews

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/

http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/artsep01/vrcoolpix2.html

http://clarkvision.com/imagedetail/film.vs.digital.1.html

I own a Nikon Coolpix 995 and use it for gross and micro photography, in addition to personal use (flowers, landscapes, portraits and other pretensions to artistic merit, plus vacations like Ed.)

Freehand shots through the eyepiece work so well, I have for now given up the idea of getting an adapter. For those still thinking of a fixed installation, best candidate I have found is http://www.zarfenterprises.com/custom2.html, or do your own looking around e.g. http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=microscope+eyepiece+camera+adapter+nikon+coolpix+995. I find some need to adjust photomic shots to restore the whiteness of background (raw looks like .15 neutral grey, colour balance is fine), but otherwise OK for projection or print up to 8"x10". I like Jasc Paint Shop. Pro 7 http://www.jasc.com/products/psp/ for tweaks, cheaper than Adobe with 95% of the functionality for what I do. Computer control of Coolpix 99X via RS-232 or USB (Win98/Win2K/Unix/Linux) is said to be possible, cf. e.g. http://www.math.ualberta.ca/imaging/, but I have just started to monkey with the software, so no testimonial. Somebody else out there make it work and tell me how.

My beloved antique Canon A-1 with a gazillion lenses and attachments is languishing in its gadget bag -- 35mm film developing is just too much trouble anymore, and I'd just have to scan the images anyways...

dugaldtaylor@sbcglobal.net

From: "dBreining" <breining@inch.com>

It is great to hear how everyone is getting on board with this technology,

which has improved the quality of this pathologist's life immeasurably.

What's even better is that most seem to be catching on that these "prosumer"

cameras are just fine for the work we do. I still routinely see demos of

digital still/video camera setups offered for $10000+. Sure there ARE some

nice extra features, and firewire has some nice perks if you have the bandwidth.

But what additional REAL functionality does it all add to your department?

Especially at a price for which you could literally outfit every scope

AND pathologist with their own camera!

I've been a Coolpix fan for about 5 years now, largely for the swivel head

and the macro capability (started with the 990, 2 megapixels). The Olympus

camedias also have pretty nice close-up lenses, and most of the other manufacturers

are catching up, so buy what you like. I've had mounted Coolpix's and Camedias

and also a DP-10 and DP-11, but like others have mentioned, even with all

that, I've gravitated to nearly 100% shooting through the eyepiece. When

carefully done, there is no quality difference, and its nice to be able

to use the same camera for EVERYTHING, no matter whether I'm at another

scope in cyto... or in radiology...etc etc. So the camera is always in

my bag.

BTW Sate, I just recently picked up the Coolpix 4500 and it's great- basically

a smaller 4 megapixel 995 clone. Probably not worth upgrading from a 995,

since I was able to get publishable prints even out of the 2 megapixel

990.

For the person who asked: The video out is great for real time monitoring,

one of our signout rooms has permanent video-outs from Coolpix 995's hooked

up to monitors for any clinicians/med students/residents who come by. You

could capture this video for still images which would probably be just

OK enough to project in powerpoint, but why would you do that when you

could shoot much better images to the card and fly them into the computer

via USB?? It's easy to just permanently wire your mounted camera to the

computer AND a video monitor. Which is what we do. Great news: many of

the newer monitors (flat LCD anyone?) also have a video input jack so you'd

only need one monitor.

The possibility of controlling these cameras via the computer is intriguing.

Somebody please hack the camera OS so that we can automatically capture

into our respective APLISs! I know some have done it in commercial and

proprietary situations, but this could open the door to much more inexpensive

solutions.

Sorry this is getting long-winded, but it's been awhile ;)

Here's a few random things I've learned, for the new initiates:

-the coolpix, at least my old 990, seems to be pretty tough. I've kinda

beat the hell out of it (some water, dropped it a couple times, mud) and

it's still going. This used to be the argument against purchasing these

for the hospital. Any testimonials about durability, or rather the lack

thereof, so that we know what to avoid?

-You can shoot all sorts of things on a light box. Glass slides-no need

to buy that $1000 1x lens; kodachromes-no need to buy that copy adapter,

xrays/CT/MRI obviously, pages of text (no back light) which can then be

OCR'd into your word processor. The close-up capability, at least for Nikon

and Olympus, is real good.

-If you use the same camera for everything (gross, micro, xrays, capturing

reports from charts or your pc), conference preparation becomes a matter

of shuffling a bunch of snapshots, which can be done elsewhere if need

be.

-you can present this whole conference from the camera's video out to the

LCD projector, if need be.

- you can now prepare the conference the day of the conference. Great for

prospective tumor boards and case conferences with all the last minute

add-ons.

-put the camera in a ziplock bag for messy grossing/the beach/boat/desert.

You can cut a slit for the lens if you want, but it'll work OK even without.

-put a cheap lens over the camera's built-in-and-expensive-to-replace lens

and throw away the lens cap. Pick a polarizer for nice blue skys or a UV

to cut through summer haze.

- if you have residents and other multiple users floating around, they

can get have their own media cards (cheap, compactflash, smartmedia, memorystick,

all of the above). You can put USB card readers (about $40 for one that

reads all these cards)on a few strategic computers and then everyone can

get creative without tripping over each other too much.

For extra credit:

-Learn to use the "burst" or "rapid sequential exposure" mode and shoot

your kid's baseball swing, or your golf swing, or your fat cat leaping

after that annoying fly. For more extra credit, invent your own action

scene.

-Learn to lock the exposure setting and shoot a huge panorama. Then stitch

it together in software or just print out 200 images on the department

color printer and cover a whole wall. For more extra credit, combine this

with the macro setting to make someone or something REALLY BIG. Provided

there's someone or something you really want to see REALLY BIG.

-Get a copy of Photoshop and any plug-ins you can find for it. Load up

a few personal photos. And mess around with every single filter and adjustment

setting. Save the ones you like. This can take awhile, so combine this

activity with music and a cold beverage. Spread out the activity over multiple

sessions.

Have fun.

db

Kim Solez wrote:

"Freehand shots through the eyepiece work so well, I have for now given up the idea of getting an adapter."

I bought my Nikon 990 in the first place because another pathologist showed me very good photomicrographs he had taken this way. However, I seem to be too shaky to do this well. The adapter my colleague has is not for permanent installation (and my Olympus BX40 has no phototube). Instead, it's just a lens that screws over the camera lens and takes the place of the eyepiece lens (which you remove), plus a simple plastic tube so that the photolens will fit into the eyepiece port of your particular microscope.

The one I use is shown in action at: http://www.thales-optem.com/ (See picture labeled "Eyepiece Mount").

A very similar piece of equipment is sold at:

http://www.martinmicroscope.com/MM99-MMC00L.htm

These hold the camera very securely so you can concentrate on the photo.

Rhonda D. Wright, M.D.

Baptist Medical Center East

Montgomery, AL Ý36117

U.S.A.

R. Belloni, S. Bergamasco, P. Bosazzi, P. Inchingolo

http://www.tbs.ts.it/archives/medicon01-belloni.pdf