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At work (and soon at home) I will be taking many depth stacked insect images from both a microscope and using a macro lens. Whilst I have a ring flash for the camera, I need a constant light source for the microscope, so I’ve started thinking and searching for a cheap LED ring light. My target price is under £50.

I remember seeing some fluorescent and white LED ring lights at an entomological fair and thinking they were rather expensive. The cheapest ring lights were the fluorescent ones, costing about £30 each. The LED rings were more, costing over £50. A quick Google search brings up a ring light for a Marumi compact camera ring light for £40 (RRP £77.62!) which still seems expensive and I don’t know how it attaches or if it would fit a microscope. Further searching turns up some in-car lights which could be adapted and an  LED microscope light which does exactly what I want (AC power, adjustable lighting and thumb screws) but costs a mere £500 and is not for sale in the UK.

DIY Ring Light © fdecomite

I am beginning to think I’ll need to build one… Any ideas?

Whilst most of the specimens I photograph are over 5mm long, I am finding that anything smaller does not have enough detail when I use my macro lens. My subjects are small insects in the field and small parts of (sometimes small) museum specimens. I am fairly certain that extension tubes will do the job for the leafhopper-sized insects and probably Collembola, but my museum work seems to be heading towards getting a digital microscope.

My supervisor and I have been looking at reasonably priced attachments and whole systems, but have yet to come close to reaching a decision. Unexpectedly, there was an article in The Phasmid Study Group newsletter (which arrived today along with the British Dragonfly Society newsletter and journal) about a cheap USB microscope. The model featured was a Summit Microfix Digital USB Microscope which can be purchased for <£50 on Amazon.

Although it is hard to see exactly how good the images produced by the microscope are, I can make out stick insect individual ocelli and fine hairs on the antennae. Whilst I think the image quality looks good enough, I am uncertain how easy it would be to increase the limited depth of field by “stacking” multiple images. From the photos of the microscope, it does not look like it comes with a stand. Amazon reviews of other microscopes made by what looks like the same company are not entirely favourable, with some potential driver issues for Mac and some XP users.

I will try and contact the author to see if it would be easy to attempt depth stacking and to have a look at her images in more detail.