>We are in the market for a color digital camera for our microscope.
>Currently we have a Princeton instruments camera which is a great grey
>scale camera but does not do real color. We are interested in getting a
>camera which will provide photo quality digital images which will replace
>our 35mm camera images ( on Kodak Royal Gold film). We have a lot of
>hematoxylin and eosin stained slides which we want to get great true
>color images of directly onto our computer.
>We tried a camera from "Spot Diagnostics"-I think this is the correct
>name. It was really good and we are quite interested in purchasing it.
>There was one other camera which another lab bought which was not
>acceptable in all cases--I believe the name was Pixera.
>Does any one have experience with these instruments or similar ones?
>Also, is there something new on the horizon? I heard about a CMOS image
>sensor which is about to come out and it has a number of advantages over
>existing hardware.
>thanks
>Richard Hotchkiss
>Washington University School of Medicine

Hey folks --

        We've been using the Spot Camera from Diagnostic Instruments for a
couple of months and have been very pleased with it for color images of
stained histology slides -- getting really good images is fast and easy.
Other than a couple of trips back to the manufacturer, once to remove a
spot (no pun intended) on the LCD filter and another to map a column defect
we found on the chip it has been hassel-free and easy to use for all of our
users.  A disadvantage for us is that one of the cables between the camera
control box and the camera can only be so long (according to the
manufacturer) and this made it difficult to move the camera between
different microscopes until we reconfigured the entire light microscopy
suite;  which was going to have to occur anyway, but something to keep in
mind if you want the camera to be used on different instruments.
        I just saw Tom Phillips' message and I wish we had a Spot 2 with a
grade 2 chip, it would be worth the extra cost.  Being able to remove the
RGB filter will make this a more versatile camera.  With the filter in
place, not enough light reaches the chip for doing fluorescence work
without lengthy exposure times, and unless your using a multi-bandpass
filter set, you don't need the camera to distinguish color anyway.

Greg.


Greg Martin
Light/Confocal Microscopy Specialist
Biological Imaging Service
The Jackson Laboratory
TJL Box 43
600 Main Street
Bar Harbor. ME  04609

207-288-6191