Re: Quality of imported microscopes?

From: Aaron (nghy_at_comcast.net)
Date: 10/04/04 

Date: 4 Oct 2004 16:22:28 -0500

To answer your question; Yes! Quality is both noticable and important
in all optical applications whether high or low .magnification is
involved.

My personal approach involves purchasing the best quality optics my
purse can afford. This attitude puts me at odds with the group that
favors a minmal investment as much or more than optical quality.
 
 In my prior post I indicated that bargins may be had on the used
industrial instrument market. There are also very experienced
technically sophisticated individuals who can put together excellent
systems cobbled from odd parts.

For some $200 is an insurmountable barrier even though many of the
very finest research microscopes can be obtained used in excellent
condition for less than a few throusand dollars.. . .

I have two of the finest low power Leica microscopes obtained at very
steep discounts from current distributor prices.. One is the Leica
M420 makroscope which looks like a stereo microscope but is actually a
single optical path with binocular viewing. It has a superb plan
apochromat zoom lens. The second is an MZ6 stereomicroscope with an
achromat lens. Both cover the range from about 6X to slightly over
30X.

The color correction of the ApoZoom objective provides a noticable
boost in the quality of the image over the MZ6.. This is so despite
the fact that the image in the MZ6 is far better than other quality
stereo instruments that I have used. The M420 is better for
photographic purposes and the MZ6 is preferred for manipulating
objects because of the 3D information in the image.

I hope this helps answer the question.

Aaron
Aaron

On Sun, 3 Oct 2004 19:52:34 -0400, "Michael A. Covington"
<look@ai.uga.edu.for.address> wrote:

>Aaron, thanks for responding to Earl.
>
>I should add that I am a very experienced telescope user. Most telescope
>images look much worse than most microscope images :) The microscope is
>primarily for my daughter, who is studying scientific illustration. I might
>also use it for examining film.
>
>We already have, from years back, a microscope that was one of Nikon's best
>in the 1960s, with planachromat objectives and compensating eyepieces. I am
>wondering how much of a step down it would be to add an imported stereo
>microscope to the toolkit. Does the lower power make it less critical? Or
>will edge-of-field problems be all the more evident?

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