Dear Ian:
 
I think you may have misunderstood! Coverslip free water immersion lenses
are not so expensive, they cost about the same as standard immersion lenses
of the same magnification.
 
You are most likely mistaking them for coverslip corrected water immersion
lenses designed for confocal Microscopy, they are expensive, (aprox 9,000.00US)
There has been quite a bit of discussion on the listserv. on theres
objectives so I will not go into details.
 
For a technical paper contact you local microscopy Rep.
 
Regards
 
Robert Parsons
Carl Zeiss Canada
 
>Hello Confocalists!
>
>Over the last few months there has been illuminating discussion of the
>benefits of coverslip-free water / saline immersion lenses... Several
>companies now produce fabulously expensive immersion lenses that are
>supposed to have highly corrected symmetrical point spread functions. I
>understand the theoretical value of such a lens, especially for
>deconvolving images, but I am wondering how much improvement they provide
>in the real world of living tissues and optically mismatched balanced salt
>solutions... Has anyone tried and compared such lenses with more
>conventional long working distance immersion lenses? Are they worth paying
>3x - 5x more for?
>
>Thanks!
>IAN
>Professor Ian Gibbins
>Department of Anatomy and Histology
>Flinders University of South Australia
>Phone:  +61-8-2045271
>FAX:    +61-8-2770085
>e-mail:  [log in to unmask]
>
>