Looking for a good digital microscope for under $300

[Chaotic42]

Like the thread title says, I'm looking for a good digital microscope, one which I can view on a monitor and take a picture of the specimen, for somewhere under $300. I don't know anything about the industry, so I'm not really sure what I should be looking for.

I found this thing, which seems like what I want, but being ignorant, I don't know if there's some catch here:

http://www.amscope.com/40x-2500x-le...amera-1.html?gclid=CKnel8_Mh9ACFYUxaQodldwD8Q

Any thoughts?

 

[rpanic]

My son wanted something like this for xmas would also like to know.

 

[IronWing]

What kind of things do you want to look at? Bug eyes? Cells? Pond water? Rocks? Do you expect to buy prefab specimen slides? Make your own slides? The type of scope you buy should be determined by what you want to see.

 

[Chaotic42]

What kind of things do you want to look at? Bug eyes? Cells? Pond water? Rocks? Do you expect to buy prefab specimen slides? Make your own slides? The type of scope you buy should be determined by what you want to see.

I'd make my own slides. I guess it would be fairly general purpose? All of the things you mentioned would be fair game. I do a lot of hiking, so rocks and leaves would be on the table, as would insects and such.

 

[rpanic]

I think my 9yo son just wanted one to look at things he finds outside in nature, bugs, soil, plants, cells, ect. he wanted to be able to see images on his computer he had a $50 digital one a few years ago but it died, now he wants something better. I would like to stay under $200 but could go a little higher.

 

[IronWing]

For your son, I would suggest a low power stereo microscope with camera. A low power stereo scope has a much greater depth of field and allows one to view objects without having to prepare slides. One will not be able to view cells with it except maybe some bigger plant cells and possibly stuff swimming in pond water. From the AmScope site, something like this scope and this camera. AmScope seems to have an endless array of choices. I picked this one because it had Galilean optics*, top and bottom lights for transmitted and reflected light viewing, adjustable light intensity, and 20x and 40x are pretty useful magnifications for lots of common objects. Being able to adjust the light intensity is important for being able to see details in the specimen and also for getting good pictures. Buying the camera separately allows one to select the 5 megapixel camera. You'd want to email AmScope to confirm that the camera works with which ever scope you might select.

I haven't used an AmScope product so I can't provide any thoughts on the quality.

* Galilean optics have parallel eye pieces allowing comfortable viewing. If you look at some of the cheaper scopes you'll see that the eye piece tubes converge. These scope use Greenough optics and can cause eye strain after even short periods of use.

-----------------------------------------
Edit: On the scope Chaotic42 linked, the 100x objective is an oil immersion objective meaning that to use it properly, you have to place a drop of oil on top of the slide to form a meniscus between the slide and the objective. For homemade slides, cleaning the oil off the slide will generally smear them out so you wouldn't be able to save the slide after viewing unless you make the slide with an epoxy. Just something to think about.

Edit2: I have a Russian-made 7x - 56x stereo microscope and a couple compound microscopes ranging from 40x to 600x (one is a university surplus Zeiss with really, really nice optics) and the stereo microscope gets far more use than the compound scopes. The effort to prepare slides for the compound scopes means that I really have to want to see something whereas with the stereo scope I just pull it out of the cabinet and turn the light on.

 

[twinrider1]

Hey IronWing. What do you think about a trinocular? Giving the camera it's own port so you can still look at the subject directly with both eyes seems like something I'd definitely want.

 

[IronWing]

Trinoculars are good way to go as you don't have to keep pulling the eyepiece out and sliding in the camera. Everything is a trade-off on price. With a trinocular, you also can get adapters for DSLRs though, in this case, the DSLR adapters cost more than the 5MP camera.

 

[Fritzo]

Trying to make it easier to masturbate?


BWAAAAAAAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAHAA......*cough*...uh...sorry. It's just that microscope posts don't show up very often.

Anyway, one of my biggest clients just happens to be a microbiology lab, and they have EXM-150's all over the place. I know they have LED light screens on them as well (I guess you want LED or halogen for true color and high magnification resolution). If you're going to be using it a lot, you may want to upgrade to the binocular eyepiece to prevent eyestrain. I have access to researchers that use microscopes professionally if you have any specific questions.