I’d heard about some Russian microscope optics from just after World War II, that involve “repatriated” Zeiss engineers in East Germany…Long story short, there were a few decades where Russian microscope objectives were being designed by some of the best optical engineers in the world.
This is an image shot with one of those - a 3.7x objective made at LOMO in Russia, but (so I’m told, and the quality backs it up) designed in East Germany. You never know what you’ll get with stuff like this that has sat for a very long time. I’d say this one is just about perfection. I paid $80 for this gem. High end objectives normally cost north of $500, and some are in six figures. What a deal!
Technical info: shot with the assistance of the WeMacro rail. 88 images at 50-micron steps, combined in HeliconFocus software. No special processing; I was eager to see what the result would be like. There are some minor artifacts that could be cleaned up…next time.