Detailed Macrophotography of PCBs
owl writes:
https://niemczuk.tech/2024/02/11/detailed-macrophotography-of-PCBs
I had to create scans of a small flex PCB to capture more details than a flat scanner could give me. Of course, this task turned out harder than I imagined. I already had a good camera, but I was lacking a good macro lens. Buying one turned out to be hard because the highest magnification ratios on most macro lenses are 1:1. The better ones are, of course, pricier.
After browsing some extreme macrophotography forums, I discovered that some people use microscope objectives with their cameras.
Those microscope objectives are divided into two groups: infinity-corrected and non-infinity-corrected. What does this mean? The non-infinity-corrected objective focuses the captured image on a plane some distance after the objective. The infinity-corrected objective collimates the captured light into a parallel beam. The second type is useful if you need to Fourier transform the image by transparency masks or do other fancy scientific image transformations. Filtering light is easier if you work with a parallel beam. To use this type of objective in macrophotography, you need an additional lens to focus the parallel beam to an image on the sensor plane.
The first type of microscope objective can be used directly with your interchangeable lens camera. The only thing you need is an extension tube, which can be 3D printed in an hour. I found a great Thingiverse repository that contains extension tubes for microscopic objectives with various camera mounts. Together with the cheapest 4X non-infinity-corrected, achromatic microscope objective gives decent results.
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