Attachments and upgrades are part and parcel of the serious photographer’s experience, and these additional gear can range from the simple (UV light filter for additional lens protection) to the extreme (400mm “wildlife” long-range zoom lens anyone?). In between there are the countless useful add-ons that nonetheless are extreme in their own way – one example is Nikon’s Fabre Photo EX Stereoscopic Microscope attachment.

The microscope is compatible with FX and DX Nikon bodies and depending on which body and which attachments you use, you may be able to magnify your chosen subject by up to 66x, making this attachment the perfect partner for your back-room picture-taking shenanigans. This device also makes use of a LED top-light source to give you good light when taking top-down pictures, and as can be seen in the pics, this setup can take jury-rigged bottom-to-top lighting to light up internal structure of your subject, if you’re really taking your study of microscopic objects that far.

Of course, the main purpose of this arrangement is to enable taking proper pictures of your subject of study without the need of jury-rigging your own photographic setup, usually with sub-par or even disastrous results. With this setup, Nikon-quality pictures of anything tiny enough to warrant study under a microscope is easy – small bugs, tiny mechanical parts, a sanded surface, the structure of a CD, anything is fair game.

Imagine lashing a DSLR to the top of this regular microscope.

This is one of those devices that call and beckon to the geek squad and doesn’t easily let go – even if the person (like me) doesn’t actually need a stereoscopic microscope, its technical nature, its cool price ($1200!!!), all its bells and whistles, parts and attachments all make the Fabre Photo EX something we’d love to get our hands on.