Amscope 10x-20x-30x-60x Stereo Microscope
Due to my growing interest in breeding marine ornamental's and culturing live foods, I have been thinking about purchasing a microscope to enable me to see 'small' things a bit better.
With basically no knowledge of what I required I reviewed numerous forum posts from a variety of forums and came to the conclusion that I required a Stereo or Dissecting Microscope rather than a Compound Microscope. The Stereo Microscopes generally have a maximum magnification of 100x compared to a Compound Microscope which goes up to 2000x - most of the things I want to look at are larger than 100 microns and a Compound Microscope would have too high a magnification in most instances.
The general consensus from lurking on Microscope forums is that anything that costs less than $1,000 is a toy and is not worth buying :eek You may get what you pay for but there was no way I could justify spending that sort of money on a microscope.
Unfortunately, I couldn't find any (relatively) cheap options in Australia and Google led me to Amscope, a US based business that sells a wide range of 'affordable' Chinese made microscopes.
After getting some assistance from a couple of members at the Marine Breeders Initiative I settled on the 10X-20X-30X-60X Stereo Microscope.
The total cost, including a 2MB USB camera and postage, was $330.
After playing around with it for a few weeks I am reasonably happy. Working out the best magnification and light source for each particular subject takes a bit of practice and I have not yet had a chance to use it with any shrimp/fish larvae which is primarily why I bought it.
I admit to being somewhat underwhelmed by the pictures provided by the USB camera. Maybe I am just used to my SLR Macro Lens and maybe I just need to expect mediocre images from a $100 camera when it appears that the top line cameras sell for $500+ :rolleyes. Maybe I will also get better at using what I have ;)
After a quick trip to a local jetty and running a few buckets of water through a 48 micron mesh, I was left with a lot of zoo plankton, primarily what I believe to be a pelagic copepod - these are my first attempts at some pictures
With basically no knowledge of what I required I reviewed numerous forum posts from a variety of forums and came to the conclusion that I required a Stereo or Dissecting Microscope rather than a Compound Microscope. The Stereo Microscopes generally have a maximum magnification of 100x compared to a Compound Microscope which goes up to 2000x - most of the things I want to look at are larger than 100 microns and a Compound Microscope would have too high a magnification in most instances.
The general consensus from lurking on Microscope forums is that anything that costs less than $1,000 is a toy and is not worth buying :eek You may get what you pay for but there was no way I could justify spending that sort of money on a microscope.
Unfortunately, I couldn't find any (relatively) cheap options in Australia and Google led me to Amscope, a US based business that sells a wide range of 'affordable' Chinese made microscopes.
After getting some assistance from a couple of members at the Marine Breeders Initiative I settled on the 10X-20X-30X-60X Stereo Microscope.
The total cost, including a 2MB USB camera and postage, was $330.
After playing around with it for a few weeks I am reasonably happy. Working out the best magnification and light source for each particular subject takes a bit of practice and I have not yet had a chance to use it with any shrimp/fish larvae which is primarily why I bought it.
I admit to being somewhat underwhelmed by the pictures provided by the USB camera. Maybe I am just used to my SLR Macro Lens and maybe I just need to expect mediocre images from a $100 camera when it appears that the top line cameras sell for $500+ :rolleyes. Maybe I will also get better at using what I have ;)
After a quick trip to a local jetty and running a few buckets of water through a 48 micron mesh, I was left with a lot of zoo plankton, primarily what I believe to be a pelagic copepod - these are my first attempts at some pictures
