Robert J. Palmer wrote: >I guess you are interested in bacteria! We are buying either a BioRad or a >Leica because we need to examine bacteria on opaque surfaces and therefore >need the flexibility of upright/invert interconversion. Leica also have ... >Viel Spass biem Einkaufen! Dear Robert, dear Linda there are also numerous eukaryotes that are smaller than 10 um ... We are working with yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae (Baker's yeast; 5-8 um) and are very satisfied with the performance of our Leica TCS 4D, which we got two years ago. Our decision was mainly based on resolution and stability, which was - at that time - superior to the Zeiss and BioRad systems. Make sure that there are no vibrations in the system through the laser fan, which, I think, is still a problem of the design of the Zeiss and BioRad microscopes, when going to a resolution you need to get with cells as small as yeasts (or bacteria)... The integration of different applications requiring highest resolution and fast imaging (Ca measurements) is very difficult and I guess you will have to come to a compromise, giving up on resolution or speed of image acquisition. If you are interested in more details, feel free to e-mail me Viel Spass beim Einkaufen! Sepp D. Kohlwein *********************************************************************** Sepp D. Kohlwein, PhD Genetics and Molecular Biology Group Department of Biochemistry and Food Chemistry Technical University Graz phone: ++43 (316) 873-6456 Petersgasse 12 fax: ++43 (316) 873-6952 A 8010 Graz, Austria e-mail [log in to unmask] ***********************************************************************