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Microscopy With A Film Scanner

Posted by timothy on from the that's-a-feature-on-a-bug dept.

NickFitz writes "If you've got a film scanner lying around, this site shows you how to use it as a microscope. "Your monitor displays images at about 70-90 dpi, so taking the example of my Mac monitor at about 75 dpi, we get a magnification of 4000/75 which is about x53. It's not a lot and isn't going to show the likes of blood cells, but it should give an interesting view of small transparent objects." Did you know that bees wings are hairy?"

11 of 133 comments (clear)

  1. Forget x53, go x200 :) by grub · · Score: 5, Interesting


    53x? I have an Intel QX3 USB microscope which goes to 200x. In the name of science (yeah right), I used it to look at a Biore strip fresh from my nose. I didn't clean my nose for a while in preparation for this advancement of knowledge and the results are worth it.

    --
    Trolling is a art,
  2. bees wings are hairy? by Havokmon · · Score: 5, Funny
    That's just European bees. American bees wax.

    --
    "I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
  3. Nice Christmas ornaments by sphealey · · Score: 4, Interesting
    My spouse has made some really nice Christmas ornaments this way by scanning dragonflys and butterflies, printing the result on very heavy paper, cutting out the outline of the insect, and mounting it to cardboard cut in the same shape. It is amazing the detail you can see in the wings and body with just the magnification of a scanner.

    I hate it when she leaves it to me to wash the scanner glass though!

    sPh

  4. If you're REALLY interested by Hayzeus · · Score: 5, Informative
    You can also get an actual microscope. A good compound microscope can be had for less than $220 used (check ebay or various used scientific equipment sites). These typically monocular scopes usually offer 3 objectives of around 10x, 40x and 90-100x, giving a total possibly magnification of around 1000x with oil immersion.

    Want photographs? You can get surprisingly good results by simply holding a digital camera flush to the eyepiece. I have a few of these I did for fun here.

    Have fun.

    --

    Roving Web-Teleoperated Robot
  5. Forensics by BWJones · · Score: 4, Informative

    People have been using scanners in this way for image forensics for years. We also used this method to get around image mosaicing large microscopy fields several years ago in an undergraduate biology class I took. (amazing what students come up with to avoid work) Now of course image mosaicing software is available to get around this problem, but it's good to see science stuff like this get out to the main stream. Perhaps this will also make it into a few junior high and high school classes as a cool exercise.

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    1. Re:Forensics by BetterThanCaesar · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Speaking of scanners and science. Remember this guy (as mentioned here)? We actually did something similar. 2400 dpi is enough for 78 rpm records, and you can get sound from vinyl. Of course, it's noisy, but you can still hear what the song is like.

      Scanners have real world applications! :-)

      --
      "Stop failing the Turing test!" -- Dilbert
  6. in case of slashdotting...here's the bee wing by ih8apple · · Score: 4, Informative

    Since this seems like the type of site that will be slashdotted, I cached a copy of the bee wing image. Enjoy!

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    Why do I h8 apple?
  7. Photocopier microscopy.. by Channard · · Score: 4, Informative

    .. has also been done, albeit with a lesser degree of success. I believe it appears in the Annals of Improbably Research collected book.

  8. Re:My Results by grub · · Score: 5, Funny


    The wings are not the hairiest thing on a bee.

    True, but have you ever tried to spread those little legs?

    --
    Trolling is a art,
  9. PCB documentation by fgm · · Score: 4, Interesting

    For years I've used a scanner as a cheap way to
    document mods to PCB's (printed circuit boards, not
    Polychlorinated Biphenyls). Even the tiny labels
    that sometimes appear on 0603 resistors are
    readable, and it documents what's there, rather
    than what I _think_ is there.

    However: some scanners have better depth of field
    than others. The ones which sweep a mirror under
    the document, rather than sweeping the sensors
    themselves, seem to have better depth of field.

  10. Webcam as telescope by Frans+Faase · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I recently discovered that you can create a good telescope with some standard camera lens and a webcam. Just take of its lens (was easy with mine) and place it behind the lens at the proper distance and you get some magnification. It gives you some extra magnification compared to a 35 mm film because the sensor is much smaller. With a 500 mm lens, the moon was too big to fit on the computer screen! I also tried to photograph some ants in the back garden from the kitchen table, but the little animals didn't want to stand quiet.