One thing is for sure: this setup does NOT make a (good) mineral photographer...

Step by step you learn to play with:
-the camera-settings
-the remote capture software settings
-changing to one of the other three photo-oculars (2.5x/16, 5x/9.5 and 10x/20)
-microscope-magnification, finetuning the phototube (see below)
-playing with (direct/indirect) light and light sources, cardboard/plastic (diffusing light),
  you can put the fibre-optic lightsource behind transparant plastic to diffuse light (also see: theimage.com's bowl)
-use reflections instead of making them disappear
-adapt the light and using longer exposure times (to 10-30 seconds is possible !)
-choosing and positioning the specimen
-working fast and efficient... ;-)

...Please ask our forum here your questions on mineral photography !

Some pics:

The Novex microscope is great! It is steady, has a very relaxed broad field of view. You can work on it for hours not getting tired eyes (even after working the whole day behind a laptop screen ;-). It is sharp throughout the whole zoom-range.

With the 300D unfortinately you miss a lot of software functions you would have when you use a cheaper Canon-camera... strange but true. You cannot preview the image on your laptop before you shoot (release the shutter). You cannot preview the image on the camera's LCD-panel also. It's a SLR-camera ;-) But you can change (and play with) the white-balance, exposure (by 1/3 stops over and under ranging from +2 to -2) and ISO-values.
Click here for what you can and cannot do with remote capture...

Thanks to... Dominik Schläfli for the great help with tuning the setup !!

The tips below are written by him: the important point is to have the same focal plane for the eyepiece and the camera, and this needs adjustment:

1) Adjusting the eyepieces for parfocality:
- get a high resolution, flat target (for instance, a small piece of print from a laser printer). At highest magnification, you should be able to see the toner grains.
- go to fullest zoom, adjust the focus using your director eye (microscope height).
- go to lowest magnification, leave focus setting and adjust the dioptrie correction of the director eye ocular to get a sharp picture again. Zoom in and verify you get a focused image at all zoom settings.
- do the same for the ocular of the other eye, check again. Eye fatigue and strain can cause changes in perceived sharpness, so it's best not to spend too much time judging sharpness (same problem as with aiming a rifle). Spend some time with the ocular settings to see if your comfortable with them.
- Put a mark on the eyepieces to memorise the desired correction.

2) Adjusting the camera for parfocality:
To adjust the camera focal plane over the full zoom range, you have to follow a similar procedure, working on the adjustable part of the photo tube (distance from projective to sensor). This time, it may be useful to work with a target with 45° angle to vertical, this way you can focus on a position and see on which position the camera is focused. Once a good tube position is found, put a mark on the tube. Comes in handy when you have to disassemble it...

3) If you have various projective lenses to choose from:
because each of your projective lenses will probably need a separate tube position setting, I'd suggest selecting the one with the field of view closest to the one you get with the eyepieces.

Also see:
absoluteclarity.com, geokring den bosch, imageshare.org, theimage.com, john betts, rz.uni-frankfurt.de, jose dehove's setup, mikroskopie-mikrofotografie.de by thomas harbich,