All posts by Peter Y Lin

Arduino, Electronics

Building A Micro Focus Stacking Rail Using Arduino

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When I first showed an micro sized automatic focus stacking rail video, the response was over whelming. Some requested an DIY version of it. Though it only took me about two days, one day for hardware design and one day for software development to build a complete system shown in the video below, it is not that easy to actually write a blog about it. Why? Because it is so easy to design a PCB using Eagle and then solder components on it. Writing a blog and building one with Arduino is kinda tedious because you have to wire them and it is messy.

Anyways, here is the video I shot showing what I did, see how clean it is. While using Arduino might be messy but you will be able to do it. Important disclaimer: I am the designer of MJKZZ Focus Stacking Rail Systems

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Extreme Macro, Extreme Macro Lighting, Extreme Macro Techniques

Analysis Of Misalignment Between Optical And Motion Axis For Focus Stacking.

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I have been asked many times about why there are streaking patterns around border of final stacked image. Well, the most common cause of these streaking patterns is due to the optical instruments used — the magnification of optical instrument changes when the distance between the subject and sensor changes. When stacking algorithm attempts to align all images, there will be mismatch of subject size. Information in one image just does not exist in another, thus stacking software often fills the final image with some arbitrary (arbitrarily chosen) pixels. However, if a telecentric optical instrument is used, due to the nature of telecentricity, there is no change in magnification, therefore there should be no or very little streaking patterns. But many still get streaking patterns even when a telecentric optical instrument is used. What gives? Here is why!

Streaking

 

Continue reading Analysis Of Misalignment Between Optical And Motion Axis For Focus Stacking. →

Arduino, Electronics

Reading Digital Caliper From Arduino

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I have just encountered the need to read a digital dial indicator for another personal project. However, most of these digital dial indicators are “expensive” (normally cost about 30 – 100 USD), so I figure to just get a cheap digital caliper costing about 3 USD to start with. I totally understand that a cheap digital caliper might have different data protocols, but from what I gathered on the internet, most of these Chinese digital measurement tools use similar format — a clock and a data.

CaliperProofArduino output matches (closely) caliper reading. There are some discrepancy, but I think it the poor caliper that is displaying wrong data

Not able to find my USB logic analyzer and my oscilloscope is dead, I decided to use an Arduino as signal analyzer. read more

Extreme Macro Lighting, Extreme Macro Techniques

Hazy Stack? Watch Your Diffusion Setup.

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Admit it, you have encountered this, after so much effort capturing images for stacking and painfully waiting for stacking software to finish, you ended up with an image with a lot of haze. So much so, your skillful Photoshop tricks can’t help it. Oh OK, sometimes Photoshop does help, but I still believe to get it right at the first place.

Setup_08So what happened? What happened is that your diffusion setup is causing light beams entering your lens, causing glare and haze. read more

Extreme Macro Lighting, Extreme Macro Techniques

Diffuse Your Light, Or Else!

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OK, that sounds a bit harsh. Then again, almost every (extreme) macro photographer knows this and tries very hard to put as much diffusion as possible. Just visit any Facebook group about macro photography or any forum, you will find talks of diffusion in abundance, there are all kind of setups to diffuse light, all kind of DIY and professional equipment, there are . . . So, yeah, we get it for sure, now go away! Cool, it is almost everybody gets it, but here I am going to present you an extreme example of what would happen if you do NOT diffuse your light!  read more

Extreme Macro Lenses, Extreme Macro Techniques

Checking Microscope Objective Chromatic Aberration

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What is chromatic aberration for an optical system? Well, according to Wiki, it is the failure of a lens to focus all colors to the same convergence point. You usually see this effect when you have high contrast edges in your image. Well, it happens not just with microscope objectives, you will also see this effect with normal photographic lenses, for example along the edges of a mountain and the sky. But I will focus on this for microscope objectives as it is rather important.

CACheckMitutoyo QV 2.5x 0.14, a 5x 0.15 “APO”, and a generic 4x PLAN objective. read more

Electronics, Extreme Macro Techniques

Say What? Using A Speaker As Stacking Stage For High Magnification Work?! Part I

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Yes, you heard it right, you can use an audio speaker as stacking stage for high magnification work. It was during the Chinese new year when almost all businesses are shut down for almost two weeks in China, my speaker for PC was behaving strangely, after all, I have been using the pair for about 7 years. So, I started investigating what was wrong. By touching some wire, the speaker made some noise, and since I was testing some setups for high magnification stacking, the movement of speaker cone caused by noise immediately drew my attention: can that movement be used for stacking? I was pretty sure it can and I posted the idea on a forum which drew some attention.

StackRailVC_2PM

After some more experiment on my own with above circuit, I think it is a very viable solution.
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