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Hi Tim,

If you need to choose one camera with the best sensitivity and best quantitative response you can choose either EMCCD or sCMOS.  Both cameras are sensitive and fast and have good quantum efficiency.  

EMCCD's are extremely sensitive with <1e- read noise, QE above 90 % and the ability to use the camera as an EM camera or a conventional CCD.  Andor have a range of EMCCD cameras available and our most popular camera is the iXon Ultra 897. This has a 512 x 512 sensor format, 16 um pixels and readout speeds of 56 fps full FOV. A new mode just added, the Optically centered Crop Mode, allows one to readout at 569 fps at 128 x 128 ROI. This is an ideal mode for Live Cell Super Resolution. 

There is a noise associated with EMCCD cameras and this is called multiplicative noise which stems from the EM gain. The addition of this noise which is equivalent to sqrt (2) effectively reduces the QE of the camera.

sCMOS on the other hand offers a large FOV, excellent resolution with 6.5 um pixels, a 5.5 MP or 4.2 MP sensor format and a QE of 72 %.  As well as this the read noise is ~1e- without EM gain and sCMOS sensors can run at 100 fps with the full FOV or much faster at smaller ROIs.  

At the end of the day the camera you choose depends on the applications which will be studied.  EMCCD technology will outperform sCMOS when it comes to single molecule detection experiments or any low light modalities such as spinning disk confocal microscopy.

If you need any more information about these technologies please visit our website (www.andor.com) or alternatively you can contact me directly.

Best wishes,

Orla Hanrahan
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Orla Hanrahan, PhD
Application Specialist, Life Science Imaging, Andor Technology

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On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 12:38 PM, Feinstein, Timothy < [log in to unmask]> wrote:

> *****
> To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
> http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
> *****
>
> Hello all,
>
> I have two questions, bundled into one email to save space.  Any help 
> on or off-list is much appreciated.
>
> 1. Not precisely confocal, but related enough.  As the new core 
> manager I am bringing quantitative widefield, TIRF and in particular 
> FRET to what was previously an exclusive confocal core.  This will 
> call for a good CCD but at the moment we have a Hamamatsu Orca 2.8 
> SCMOS, which is nice for speed but lacking in sensitivity and 
> un-binnable.  As I recall EM-CCDs have the best sensitivity but a 
> problem with non-Gaussian noise.  Is this still true?  If you had to 
> choose one model for the best combination of sensitivity and 
> quantitative response, what would you choose?  Thanks in advance.
>
> 2. While helping several users with photoconversion of mEOS2, we have 
> noticed an interesting relationship between laser intensity and ROI 
> scan speed.  In our hands it seems like turning the 405nm laser up 
> mostly increases bleaching, whereas effective photoconversion depends 
> on finding a long enough pixel dwell time.  Maybe I am just showing my 
> lack of experience with photoconversion, but it seemed like a 
> counterintuitive result.
>
> Also, I just heard about mEOS4 on this list for the first time.  Does 
> its increased stability mean anything for live imaging, or does it 
> mostly help with post-fixative applications?
>
> Thanks and all the best,
>
>
> TF
>
>
> Timothy Feinstein, Ph.D. | Confocal Manager, Van Andel Research 
> Institute
> 333 Bostwick Ave., N.E., Grand Rapids, Michigan 49503
> Phone: 616-234-5819 | Email: [log in to unmask]<mailto:
> [log in to unmask]>
>