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OT - Using film or flatbed scanners for microscope slide scanning

Posted by Nicholas Verge on Oct 25, 2007; 9:19pm
URL: http://imagej.273.s1.nabble.com/FFT-along-line-in-image-tp3698130p3698133.html

Off-topic, but thought the Image-J community might be able to help.

I am considering purchasing of either a high-resolution medium format film  
scanner (~4000dpi hardware optical res) or a high-resolution flatbed  
scanner (>4000dpi hardware optical res)for scanning microscope slides -  
rock thinsections to be precise. Some results of using such kit and which  
have prompted my interest in using scanners, rather than a microscope  
mounted camera, can be seen here:

http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/indexmag.html?http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/artaug04/dwslidescan.html

Does anyone have any experience of using such scanners for this purpose  
that they would be willing to pass on?

For my purposes i dont need magnifaction beyond the equivalent of a that  
provided by a x10 microscope objective as the mineral grains in my rocks  
samples are quite coarse.  I need to obtain nice evenly illuminated sharp  
images of the entire thinsection if possible.

On the above website, the results are shown of using a 35mm film scanner  
2900dpi and although he has obtained good results for a thinsection, the  
problem with using such a setup is that the orientation of the slid is  
fixed. I wish to use plane polarised light with and without crossed  
polars, so need to be able to place the slide in an arbitary orientation  
relative to the polarisation axes, hence my idea is to use a medium format  
film scanner or flatbed scanner with transparency tray either will give  
more freedom.

Dedicated film scanners being considered for this purpose are Nikon  
Supercoolscan 8000ED/9000ED, Microtek 120tf, Polaroid Sprintscan 120. all  
4000dpi.

Flatbed scanner with transparency tray: Microtek Artixscan F1 (or M1 due  
out next summer) 4800dpi supposedly

Thanks all, for your help.



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Nicholas J. Verge BSc. FGS
Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, UK

Geologist