I’m doing high speed scientific imaging. I have a camera mounted in a fixed location with a Micro Nikkor 105mm lens. It’s viewing a fixed subject that has a small mirror oriented 45 degrees underneath it. This allows the camera to simultaneously view the subject from the side and the bottom. Unfortunately, I can’t get both the side view and bottom view in sharp focus at the same time, because the optical path length for the two views is different due to the mirror.
I’ve thought of a few possible solutions to bring both views into focus at the same time, and I’d like to ask about one of them.
If I put a small, separate convex lens in the camera’s view so the side view light passes from the subject, through the convex lens, then into the camera lens, but the underside view does not pass though the separate convex lens. would that, given the right lens and placement, allow me to bring both views into sharp focus at the same time?
Also, if it would work, can anyone point me to the math required to estimate the right focal length for the convex lens?
If there is some other solution you can think of that would solve this, I’d be interested in hearing about that too.
Thank you!