>         I'm looking for recommendations before we purchase a digital camera for
> our lab. We have a low-resolution Pixera camera- great for dissecting scope
> work. Then we have a PI cooled-CCD camera. Great for cell work, but black
> and white. We're looking for something in between these two resolution
> extremes, three-color, and not too pricey. Our goal is to publish
> moderately high resolution images of H&E sections and some dissecting scope
> gross morphology images. The Pixera just isn't cutting it as far as
> resolution. Is the Spot camera what I'm looking for? Any suggestions would
> be great.

Since you already have a hi res cooled camera for fluorescence work, I
think you will find that the DVC-1310C (10 bit color uncooled, 1300x1000)
is a good choice. It will work nicely for brightfield and most fluorescence,
produces images at 12 frames/sec, and can integrate up to a few seconds
without too much noise.

It will cost around $7000-$7500 after you add in the digital frame grabber,
power supply and one or two drivers (TWAIN and maybe Image Pro if you
have that).

The Spot is a nice camera, but in its color mode it wastes a lot of light,
and you would not like doing fluroescence through its color filter
(the LCTF). For monochrome, you have the PI, so the DVC will complement
it nicely. You will find that in many low light apps you will still use
the DVC, just because it isconvenient.

You can write to me directly for specific questions. I have no interest
in DVC other than as a purchaser of two of their cameras.

--aryeh
Aryeh Weiss                          | email: [log in to unmask]
Department of Electronics            | URL:   http://optics.jct.ac.il/~aryeh
Jerusalem College of Technology      | phone: 972-2-6751146
POB 16031                            | FAX:   972-2-6751275
Jerusalem, Israel                    | ham radio: 4X1PB/KA1PB