Re: Wild M3/M5 eyepieces


The M3 and M5 are both nice - I currently have a couple of M3's, and
have had M5 and M5A's in the past. There are things to be aware of
with any of these - the M3 has quite a bit of curvature in the field of
view - a penny looks like a dome from the top. This would drive you
crazy if you were looking at circut boards all day long, but with
biological material (insects, etc) it only increases the 3-D effect.
The 3B is flatter and the M3Z is quite flat - but then the insides of
the M3Z are the same as the current MZ6 - and the M3-C has the same
insides as the current MS5. Difference is the current ones have "anti
static" bodies (= plastic) while the older ones were metal. Looking
through them I don't think you will see any difference.

When I was doing some nematode work I used an M5, but these days I keep
a B&L stereo zoom 7 around for the 40-70x coverage - which I rarely
need any more. My current favorite is my M7A which has a 6 to 31x
range, or 9 to 45x with 16x eyepieces. The Wild/Leica 16x eyepieces
are very nice (I have one set) but also expensive at about $800 a pair.
For all the Wild stereo microscopes the eyepieces for the current S4
and S6 series are very nice and inexpensive (about $130 a pair for the
basic 10x) - big field of view, and you can get the IF option, and very
good high eyepoint if you wear glasses (that's me).

Like everything else you need to think of what you are going to be
doing most of the time, and concentrate on that. If you are not going
to need stereo high mag much (and a lot of people don'g), then don't
spend a lot to get it, but rather get a microscope that gives you the
best performance in the range you will usually be using. I am a big
fan of CMO microsopes vs Greenough style - I just really like all the
light that is gathered up by that big objective. Even an old AO
Cycloptic will make a lot of modern Greenough style microsopes seem
pretty dim. I still have a couple of Cycloptics around - usual warning
about prisms coming loose - the one I take out into the field has the
prisms reglued with modern epoxy and is a great (and fairly
inexpensive) field microscope. A nice feature of the cycloptic is that
if you hunt around you can find a dual viewing head for it that is
great when you are working with kids.

Whatever you do have fun with it.

Stephen Poe

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