How to choose your optical adaptation

Connecting a camera to a microscope requires an optical adaptation that focuses the image created by the microscope on the camera sensor.

There are different sizes of sensors and the adaptation must be chosen accordingly.

For a small sensor it will be necessary to make a smaller image and sometimes accept to lose some of the total field seen with the microscope.

Large sensors will have an adaptation that reduces the image less, but on the other hand they will tend to be able to capture a large part of the total field of the microscope, which may be a challenge for the optical quality of the microscope. Indeed, this field is not absolutely flat or bright. Uniform. The better the optics of the microscope, the less important these defects are.

A camera can be placed in place of an eyepiece but more often a special output dedicated to this use on the microscope. On modern microscopes, this output is said to be in parallel field, that is to say focused at infinity. The adaptation has only to converge the output field of the microscope to the sensor of the camera. This parallel field simplifies the use of adapters. The old microscopes did not have this and therefore if we try to adapt their output, many problems of fields can appear, making the use of the microscope impossible with the camera.

Manufacturers of optical equipment have specialized in relaxing the microscope.

The connection of the camera to the optical adaptation is done by a well defined screw thread of a certain length or by gag systems, photo type.

The first one is called C-mount, the other K-mount, but other mounts exist. The C-mount is by far the most common.

In addition to the thread, the distance between the physical plane of the camera and the sensor is well defined.