Thinking of getting a scope?, some learners lessons.

Having had many enquiries about what microscope to buy when starting out i decided to put my experiences up in one place for free and easy access. here it is. i am only an amateur, so get the best advice you can.

for most people i would recommend a good student scope at a few $100 to start, single eyepiece and a phone camera mount, along with a digital skin scope. cheap and effective for most applications. it depends entirely on your budget and how far you want to go. the reason i bought mine was simply to be in a position to help family and friends with whats happening today. That includes inspecting our air, water, meds, foods, clothes, soaps, blood, sputum and other body fluids, skin, supplements etc.

having looked at the environment , animals ( mice, possums , sheep etc ) and plants, my conclusion is we are all contaminated now and the only way to deny this is if you don’t look for yourself.

I bought an new omax biological m837zl , 40 to 2500x with a 14 mp camera. $1800 NZD. Probably approx $7< 800 in the states. The biggest issue i had with it was fixed in 5 minutes with an angle grinder. identifying it was harder. In hindsight i would not have had that issue as i wouldn’t have bought that camera for it anyway. The scope is good value and the mechanics and optics are fine.

more on that later.

Below. the silver adjuster tube ( between cam and scope) for matching the camera focus to the eyepiece focus that gave me issues.

Because its only usb 2.0 this cam is probably 8mp. an old slr camera with adaptor tube will give way better results and this is my next modification. An expert i trust explained why but i wont go into that now.

Below . I pulled the x 100 oil objective off and replaced it with a x 60 dry achromatic one. not good for dark field so much but good with the darkfield adaptor lowered. different color types too. would like to try out an infinity objective one day but they are approx $ 600 upwards.

Below. I bought a dark field adaptor for it. $150. you can ( and need to ) raise and lower this for best dark field effect and for each objective . also by lowering it all the way down you can have a semi bright field effect that is good for different perspectives and clarity. the shop recommended a $600 adaptor, which was out of stock, luckily for me, as it was only for oil objectives.

i recommend a u tube guy who gives good advice about many of these things - microbe hunter.

The max mag I use is x 600 (x60 objective with x 10 eyepieces) , then i use my phone camera zoom through the eyepiece from x 2, 3 4 or 5 on top of that because i get better definition with my phone than the scope cam. the earrly shots i took showing the eyepiece were not zoomed in on the ph. basic. This is partly my fault as setting up the software for the scope cam hasn’t been easy , but regardless the quality of the ph camera will always be better than the current scope cam..

My scope came with x25 eyepieces as well, a waste of $. This is how they advertise these scopes as x2500. its b.s. and the x 25 are useless for sharp images. i only use the x10.

This gives me x 2000 with clarity as per the saline pic previously. i am reasonably confident now of attaining x2500 to x3000 with good resolution eventually. that sort of magnification is rarely needed but sometimes you really want to see finer details, especially if you are interested in nano tech etc. its a matter of bubget and why you want one. most bloodwork is usually only < x400.

After having to refocus every time i wanted to bring the image up on the screen i tried adjusting the camera focus by turning the silver adjuster tube up and down but it wouldnt go down far enough to match. thats when i removed it and shortened it by approx 15mm with the grinder. worked great after that.

Initially I didn't think I would use the eyepieces at all and just use the camera and PC. This was not practical for many reasons.

In hindsight, I would have ordered one with no oil lens, x 25 eyepieces or camera and added the best quality, highest magnification dry objective instead, (there are also infinity objectives that are great but pricey).

plus the darkfield adaptor.

and an adaptor tube for an slr camera for photos and video with a remote capture button and pc link.

happy for any additional advice here too.

matt. j.a.b.