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Peter Gabriel Pitrone - TechRMS
Microscopy/Imaging Specialist
Prof. Dr. Pavel Tomancak group
Max Planck Institute for
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"If a straight line fit is required, obtain only two data points." - Anon.


On Mon, March 4, 2013 5:00 pm, David Baddeley wrote:
<|> *****
<|> To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
<|> http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
<|> *****
<|>
<|> A DSLR and some L-series glass might also do the trick, at somewhat more cost than a coolpix, but
<|> probably still less than a specialised scientific offering. Canon and Nikon both have SDKs if you
<|> want to control from the computer, although they are pretty messy and would incur a fair bit of
<|> pain before you got anything working (I had a look at the canon SDK last year, and concluded it'd
<|> be a ~ 2 week job to get it working nicely). That said, the remote control software that they
come
<|> with isn't half bad, and we used one of them extensively as a sighting camera on the side port of
<|> one of our microscopes. If only they offered monochrome sensors ..., then again with 18+ Mpixels
<|> you might be able to get away with just binning. Are you looking to do fluorescence, or just
<|> brightfield/transmitted? The commercial DSLRs also tend to have IR blocking filters which make
<|> them pretty useless in the far red, although there are a couple of outfits which sell modified
<|>  cameras where they've removed the filter. There are also a few tales on the web of people
<|> removing the bayer mask from a DSLR to get a monochrome chip, but you unfortunately have to
<|> remove the microlenses first to get there. If you have a good light budget, and are prepared to
<|> sacrifice one camera to experience it might just work. 
<|>
<|> Best wishes,
<|> David 
<|>
<|>
<|> ________________________________
<|>  From: Guy Cox <[log in to unmask]>
<|> To: [log in to unmask]
<|> Sent: Sunday, 3 March 2013 8:51 PM
<|> Subject: Re: Cheap scope components
<|>
<|> *****
<|> To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
<|> http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
<|> *****
<|>
<|> Sounds to me like you need a camera rather than a microscope.  I recently bought a Nikon Coolpix
<|> L310 which when set on macro will easily get down to 2x2 cm.  It has a 21x zoom range and has 14
<|> MP.  Cost $149. 
<|>
<|>                                                            Guy
<|>
<|>
<|>
<|> ---Original Message-----
<|> From: Confocal Microscopy List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Andrew York
<|> Sent: Monday, 4 March 2013 2:59 AM
<|> To: [log in to unmask]
<|> Subject: Cheap scope components
<|>
<|> *****
<|> To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
<|> http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
<|> *****
<|>
<|> I'm looking for some advice about buying or building my own low-mag brightfield microscope. I
want
<|> the following capabilities:
<|>
<|> * Brightfield illumination
<|> * Cheap ccd or cmos camera with as many pixels as possible (>10 MP ideally), no eyepieces
<|> required, acquiring to a computer.
<|> * Large field of view, ~2x2 cm
<|> * Adjustable zoom would be nice, over a moderate range (maybe a factor of 4)
<|> * Resolution limited by camera pixel size rather than aberrations or diffraction (if possible)
<|> * Manual controls, no automation required in the optics
<|> * Room between the objective and the tube lens for a dichroic, which I might want to insert
later,
<|> for free-space coupling of illumination beams.
<|>
<|> Is there an obvious commercial solution that is good and cheap? If not, any advice on where to
buy
<|> the components is appreciated.
<|>