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Hi Jens,

On Mon, 31 Mar 2014, Jens-Bernhard Bosse wrote:

> I am looking for a budget camera (under 1K) for a microinjection/routine
> fluorescence rig. I will do the microinjection in phase contrast and
> need some fluorescence capability to check for microinjected fluorescent
> beads and fluorescent cells. I am not too sure if CMOS or CCD are better
> for the job. Port-wise USB, Firewire or GigE would be all fine. A higher
> frame rate capability (e.g. 25 fps) would be great as well as a
> resolution around one megapixel. Ideally it should be supported by
> either Matlab or Micromanager.

We dabbled with TheImagingSource cameras (supported by Micro-Manager, and
through Micro-Manager in Matlab, of course). The quality was decent, but I
would recommend the Firewire version because our USB model seemed to have
some problems with heat when switched on for eight hours or so. That might
be fixed in the meantime, though.

Another budget option might be IIDC machine vision cameras (supported by
Micro-Manager: http://www.micro-manager.org/wiki/Dc1394 -- limited Windows
support).

Having said that, in our project we were lucky to get ahold of an Orca
that was not currently in use, and the quality of the images is noticably
better. So we currently use neither of the cameras mentioned above.

Ciao,
Johannes