HANDBOOK OF 

 PHOTOMICROGRAPHY 



CHAPTER I 



PHOTOMICROGRAPHIC APPARATUS 



A PHOTOMICROGRAPHIC outfit comprises a camera, micro- 

 scope, and illuminating system, carried on a suitable 

 baseboard or table. Each item is more or less elaborately 

 fitted up with accessories, but the great majority of 

 workers will find that quite a simple apparatus is 

 adequate, and it may be said at the outset that the 

 refinements in optical and mechanical details, which so 

 rapidly run up the cost, are made primarily to facilitate 

 difficult or high-power work, and to enable the most 

 delicate adjustments to be carried out with rapidity and 

 certainty. Difficult photomicrography can indeed be 

 done with the simplest apparatus, provided the lenses 

 are good, but the calls then made upon the skill and 

 patience of the worker are much greater than when the 

 adjustments are more or less automatic. 



An ordinary stand camera, a student's microscope, 

 and an oil or incandescent gas lamp, with a bull's-eye and 

 Abbe condenser, low and medium-power objectives, and 

 an eyepiece, will do perfectly well for many purposes, 

 and very few workers require anything more elaborate. 

 But the photography of diatoms requiring very high 

 resolution, or of bacteria necessitating magnifications of 



