Why do these two 20x objectives have a price difference?

[Quaswexexort]

20X Infinity Plan Microscope Objective
SKU: PA20X-INF-V300
Availability: In stock

Regular price $145.99
Offer: $72.99

This brand new 20X infinity Plan Achromatic microscope objective lens fits common size (DIN/JIS standard) compound microscopes
Plan Achromatic Corrections
Magnification: 20X
NA: 0.40
Tube Length: Infinity-corrected

Link: https://www.amscope.com/accessories/obj ... ive-1.html

_____________________________________________________

20X Infinity-corrected Plan Objective for Microscope
SKU: PA20X-INF
Availability: In stock

Regular price: $369.99

Offer: $184.99

This brand new 20X infinity Plan Achromatic microscope objective lens fits common size (DIN/JIS standard) compound microscopes
Plan Achromatic Corrections
Magnification: 20X
NA: 0.40
Tube Length: Infinity-corrected

Link: https://www.amscope.com/accessories/obj ... scope.html

[MichaelG.]

Presumably the -V300 suffix means something, but I have no idea what.

MichaelG.

[Hobbyst46]

IMO, the asking reasonable price for either objective is <100 USD, on the basis of scanty survey of eBay. Assuming that returns are accepted.

[Scarodactyl]

You'd need to ask amscope. They have customer service and should be willing to answer any questions about their stock, though I have heard mixed things about how much they tend to know.

[PeteM]

Don't know why the difference. But I've bought the $70 version to fill in a turret on a BX40 and it was decent. Could be the higher priced one is just inconsistent pricing. Could also be the glass is good into the UV range or ??? As suggested above, you could always ask AmScope.

[apochronaut]

Probably on to something, Pete. Possibly a reference to the wavelength it will pass, as in Violet 300. Obviously it should be UV 300 but English translation and accurate nomenclature has never been a strong point for Asian industry.
I once passed a woman at Dundas and Spadina in Toronto wearing stilettos, skin tight black leather pants and a T-shirt that proudly proclaimed her fashion statement in plain English : Yeast Analysis Fashion. Presumably, the designer didn't fully understand the significance of advertisements for Vagisil, when they showed up on prime time television, right in there with the perfumes and sun glasses.

[MichaelG.]

Probably on to something, Pete. Possibly a reference to the wavelength it will pass, as in Violet 300. Obviously it should be UV 300 but English translation and accurate nomenclature has never been a strong point for Asian industry.

Good hypothesis ... But then I wonder why the V300 version would be so much cheaper.

MichaelG.

[Hobbyst46]

...Could also be the glass is good into the UV range or ???

The chief advantage of an objective that lets a lot of light in the UV range of 380-300nm pass through would be for fluorescence microscopy. If the -V300 objectives were such, AmScope would have mentioned it. Yet the -V300 objectives on the AmScope site (20X Plan {not PlanF} and other mags) are described as: compound, brightfield, darkfield. Just these 3 features.

[MichaelG.]

-V300 is still a mystery to me, but I remembered seeing it somewhere before .. and have just rediscovered this:
http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... ht=amscope

... which doesn't actually help, but is pretty impressive.

MichaelG.
.

Update: Searching the Amscope store for V300 returns some results that are not objectives
https://www.amscope.com/instantsearchpl ... lt/?q=v300
... the mystery deepens.

[Hobbyst46]

-V300 is still a mystery to me, but I remembered seeing it somewhere before .. and have just rediscovered this:
http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... ht=amscope

... which doesn't actually help, but is pretty impressive.

MichaelG.
.

Update: Searching the Amscope store for V300 returns some results that are not objectives
https://www.amscope.com/instantsearchpl ... lt/?q=v300
... the mystery deepens.

I was particularly impressed by the dramatic price discount, from ~$80 to ~$18, for a new -V300, 4X0.10 Plan 160/0.17mm objective, described in the link; as well as by the performance distribution in a sample of 10 different objectives, as stated in one of the responses in that thread. For $17 the risk is not high, for a 160mm objective; so for inifinity - 40-50$ ?

[Sauerkraut]

As others have noted, the $70 version is decent. I bought that exact one from Amscope and it works great in my scope.

One thing I noticed about Amscope on eBay is that it seemed they sometimes list the same item at different prices. Not sure why though. Their eBay return process is excellent so unwanted items are easily returned with no hassle.

Heather

[Crater Eddie]

I once asked Amscope why different listings of seemingly the same objective were priced differently. They said it has to do with which warehouse they were from. I asked if this equated to country of origin but got no reply.
CE

[apochronaut]

Variable pricing is a technique that some high volume retailers use to increase sales. The more astute buyers will compare features and make a conclusion that balances features against price. There are a contingent out there though, that make assumptions based almost entirely on price, either assuming that a higher price means better quality or fearful that a lower price implies some hidden defect or lack of quality; "seconds" perhaps. Label buyers, in the case of wine are a version of that. Amscope are hitting all the bases by moving their prices around all the time.
I would wager that the two objectives are in fact the same but I see other objectives in their listings with the V300 designation. It is only in the description , though. It doesn't appear on the actual item, so how would one of the unknowledgable lackies in their system, know one from the other?

UV300 does make some sense but it for sure would be stamped on the barrel.

[MichaelG.]

... The more astute buyers will compare features and make a conclusion that balances features against price. ...

I think you have eloquently re-stated the essence of the original question.

MichaelG.

[75RR]

I once asked Amscope why different listings of seemingly the same objective were priced differently. They said it has to do with which warehouse they were from. I asked if this equated to country of origin but got no reply.

I think we can safely assume that warehouse = country/factory

[MichaelG.]

I think we can safely assume that warehouse = country/factory

That seems a reasonable and logical assumption
Can we therefore infer that -V300 products are generally somehow less satisfactory than the ones without that suffix ?

MichaelG.

[75RR]

Can we therefore infer that -V300 products are generally somehow less satisfactory than the ones without that suffix ?

I imagine that they apply an across the board markup irrespective of the factory price. Don't see them asking for discounts based on lens quality.

[Scarodactyl]

I am not sure how much we can rely on consistent performance objective to objective, so it would probably be hard to judge from price point to price point too. At least some times (per that linked thread) they can provide good value for the money, sometimes less so per other testing.
Their prices confuse me anyway. Even on their top end CMO stereo scopes (the same kind everyone is reselling nowadays) their prices are all over the place. For a while there for instance they had the toppest end one with a 15:1 zoom ratio priced a thousand or so below their 10:1 zoom ratio one. Why? Who knows. It is a mystery.

[MichaelG.]

I imagine that they apply an across the board markup irrespective of the factory price. Don't see them asking for discounts based on lens quality.

I'm really sorry, but I don't think I undertand your point

The two objectives in question are:

SKU: PA20X-INF-V300
Regular price $145.99
Offer: $72.99

SKU: PA20X-INF
Regular price: $369.99
Offer: $184.99

In each case the 'offer price' is [near enough] half the 'regular price'
The technical descriptions [limited as they are] look identical.

But the -V300 version is less than half the price of the other
... The question surely remains "Why?"

The discounts are consistent, but are you suggesting that the ex-factory price from two sources of "identical" items simply differs by so much ... and that Amscope justs marks them up by the same arbitrary percentage to produce a different list price for each?

That would seem a very strange way to run a business.

MichaelG.
.

P.S. ... just in case anyone is not familiar with 'SKU'
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/st ... it-sku.asp

.
Edit: Having just read Scarodactyl's comment ... perhaps Amscope does run its business in a very strange way !!

[apochronaut]

In my experience, they do run their business in a very strange way; but it appears to generate cash. In addition to applying a shotgun approach to pricing, they really can't answer any questions beyond the most rudimentary. If you dig in, a manager can be brought on board as in most other volume sales corporate circumstances but the main objective is to get you off of the phone by simplifying the answer. Job # 1 is sales. Get 5000 microscopes out the door and they can get a better price on the next five thousand. It's the Walmart of microscope retailers.
Yet they have stepped up and have offered some planF objectives recently. That's really great except for the fact that they don't offer a condenser that can maximize the capability of the objective set... they don't even offer a microscope with those objectives in it? They are just banking on the fact that people will see them and go oh! planfluorites!... that will make things better. Having taken a couple of them for a spin out of curiousity; I have and can again report that they are not great .

My guess is that they are just using hits as the arbiter of their marketing decisions. They aren't an optical company, they aren't even really a microscope company; they are brokers of mass produced optical consumer goods; they just happened to get in on the ground floor when a bit of boom in microscope interest was taking place, established a connection with suppliers and have kept rolling with the formula.

[MichaelG.]

In my experience, they do run their business in a very strange way; but it appears to generate cash. In addition to applying a shotgun approach to pricing, they really can't answer any questions beyond the most rudimentary. [ ... ]

Thanks for that insight
Being in the UK, I only really know Amscope as a name ... but what you say sounds very familiar from our experience with audio retailers in the 1970s : There was a sudden plague of 'Box Shifters'

MichaelG.

[Hobbyst46]

In my experience, they do run their business in a very strange way; but it appears to generate cash. In addition to applying a shotgun approach to pricing, they really can't answer any questions beyond the most rudimentary. If you dig in, a manager can be brought on board as in most other volume sales corporate circumstances but the main objective is to get you off of the phone by simplifying the answer. Job # 1 is sales. Get 5000 microscopes out the door and they can get a better price on the next five thousand. It's the Walmart of microscope retailers.
Yet they have stepped up and have offered some planF objectives recently. That's really great except for the fact that they don't offer a condenser that can maximize the capability of the objective set... they don't even offer a microscope with those objectives in it? They are just banking on the fact that people will see them and go oh! planfluorites!... that will make things better. Having taken a couple of them for a spin out of curiousity; I have and can again report that they are not great .

My guess is that they are just using hits as the arbiter of their marketing decisions. They aren't an optical company, they aren't even really a microscope company; they are brokers of mass produced optical consumer goods; they just happened to get in on the ground floor when a bit of boom in microscope interest was taking place, established a connection with suppliers and have kept rolling with the formula.

For me also AmScope is just a name.

About the PlanF objectives: They are described in the AmScope site as fluorite glass AND as ideal for fluorescence.
The advantage of fluorite glass in chromatic corrections is generally important, but not the most important feature for fluorescence (much fluorescence is done with monochromatic light, anyway). Still, as expected from fluorite objectives, the AmScope PlanF 4X, 10X and 40X objectives are of higher NAs than the Plan or Achro objectives of the same power. That is indeed very important advantage for fluorescence, because they gather much more light. "Ideal" in this case is just the typical exaggerated sales phrase.

However, for fluorescence applications, a high transmission of light over a wide wavelength range (UV included) would be an important advantage. I do not know whether the PlanF are such.

If indeed AmScope sells the PlanF specifically for fluorescence (for whatever reason), for EPI-fluorescence that is, a condenser is not needed, since in such configurations, the objective serves as condenser. On the other hand, during a given microscopy session, it would be very cumbersome to switch objectives whenever one switches the inspection mode, from brightfield (or phase contrast or DIC) to fluorescence or vice versa. Hence the same objective should perform well in both modes, so an appropriate condenser is indeed essential IMO.

[apochronaut]

I bought the 4X and the 10X PlanF about a year and half ago out of curiosity. They do indeed perform similarly to what I would have expected out of a fluorite objective. Ca is reduced, they are bright and the resolution is better than any of the Chinese made planachros I had here at the time or have encountered. I would say that they are a definitely superior objective group than the vast array of quite similar planachros pumped out of the China factories. The era that the optics from that country stem from is by and large a different era than the major developers of microscope optics have been in for over 30 years, and the mechanical consistency of the mounts; the actual objective bodies is a crap shoot, so it is no surprise that the optics are A) cheap and B) usually mediocre. The PlanF 4 and 10X at least, and I would imagine the other 2 to follow suit, are a cut above that though. How far is the question.

In actual absolute performance ; not being compared to Chinese planachros, rather being compared to typical planachro and planfluorite objectives built by major companies in the last 30 years----since about 1990, they are about as good as a good set of planachros but not fully plan at 20mm f.o.v., so even with the discounted price tag of around 1300.00, they are no bargain.

Since ray tracing became de rigeur in objective design, microscope objectives have improved dramatically and I don't care what country is producing them, a sophisticated modern design with competitive optics is going to be expensive. In offering the PlanF group, all they did was catalogue a set of optics that leapfrogged the staid technology that they are saturated with but at a price that is more reflective of the effort involved to produce a set of decent objectives. With the PlanF's they no longer can lean on the fact that 500,000 objectives of the same design have already been produced , any costs associated with their development are long ago paid for and they also can no longer rely on the fact that in a planned economy, unemployment cannot exist, so subsidies to factories to keep production going are always on the books.
Now, they even have a Uplan apo 4X but at a list price of 1500.00 and an of course discounted price down to 1/2 of that, we begin to see the true picture. The last second hand infinity corrected 4 X planapo I bought, cost me 90.00. I don't think I will be doing a head to head test too soon.

Here is the actual test I did on the 4 and 10X PlanF about 1 1/2 years ago. It's way down in this thread...14th post.
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=4447&hilit=planF

[Hobbyst46]

I bought the 4X and the 10X PlanF about a year and half ago out of curiosity. They do indeed perform similarly to what I would have expected out of a fluorite objective. Ca is reduced, they are bright and the resolution is better than any of the Chinese made planachros I had here at the time or have encountered. I would say that they are a definitely superior objective group than the vast array of quite similar planachros pumped out of the
Here is the actual test I did on the 4 and 10X PlanF about 1 1/2 years ago. It's way down in this thread...14th post.
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=4447&hilit=planF

Thanks for that comparison, it is instructive and helpful. When I combine it with some common eBay prices for new non-branded objectives from China, and the few mentioned statistics of performance on this forum and the macrophotography forum, the lesson I learn is:
1. With some luck, the objective might be acceptable
2. A possible advantage would be a long WD, perhaps at the price of parfocality (so, not to mix them with objectives from other makes)
3. Price is variable and not clearly correlated with the features as listed.
The culprit is that objective specs on those eBay listings (as well as on the makers site) are incomplete.
For example, I do not have a 4X objective. Perhaps a cheap 4X, 160mm Plan or PlanF objective might do, especially at at $20-$30. But if the WD is unknown, then what ?

[viktor j nilsson]

For example, I do not have a 4X objective. Perhaps a cheap 4X, 160mm Plan or PlanF objective might do, especially at at $20-$30. But if the WD is unknown, then what ?

Since it's virtually guaranteed that a new Chinese 4x is at least very near 45mm parfocal DIN, then it's easy to see based on a photo if it has a longish WD - it will be fairly short, as the 'good' Amscope 4x.