Hello from Victoria, Canada

[stitchy.mitch]

Hello everyone, what a wonderful forum full of kind people willing to help another.

I'm from Vancouver Island in Canada, and I study biology with a concentration in neuroscience. My background in microscopy lies mostly in my undergraduate work, though I've taken on a few a side projects requiring viewing and staining cells in light microscopy as I continue work to attempt molecular characterization of Myriophyllum spicatum in a local lake, as floristic keys are not completely helpful in the determination down to species. The species and related species in that genus demonstrate significant phenotypic plasticity depending on growth conditions. As well as just a personal interest in getting better at staining.

Recently the frustration of working on a scope at home, at my leisure became too tempting. I took the plunge and got a trinocular OMAX scope, predictably, as my first scope.

I still use it currently with an adapter setup for my Canon Rebel T1i DSLR. It took surprisingly nice pictures and I have to admit it wasn't bad for the price. But soon I notice it was tremendously lower quality than the scopes I'm used to at university. I'm currently in the process of acquiring, refurbishing and fitting an LED kit into a Nikon S-kt trinocular scope. Still need to find good objectives for phase and light microscopy, but it will all come together. Look forward to sharing plenty in the future.
One of my first photomicrographs- an Ostracod spp.

IMG_9225small.JPG (18.03 KiB) Viewed 3173 times

Thank you everyone,

~Mitchell

[Hobbyst46]

...OMax microscope...I still use it currently with an adapter setup for my Canon Rebel T1i DSLR. It took surprisingly nice pictures and I have to admit it wasn't bad for the price. But soon I notice it was tremendously lower quality than the scopes I'm used to at university. I'm currently in the process of acquiring, refurbishing and fitting an LED kit into a Nikon S-kt trinocular scope. Still need to find good objectives for phase and light microscopy, but it will all come together...

Welcome Mitchell, I like your devotion to microscopy at your free time, in addition to your research. I also like the photo of Ostracod you posted.

The intriguing statement in your post I made bold: "...lower quality..." etc.
What are the criteria that show that your home scope is (relatively) low quality ? compare the same specimen slide, under brightfield (say), by eye view, or by the photo image quality (contrast ? resolution ?) between your home microscope and any University Research microscope ? Would it be possible to demonstrate them ? or is it the mechanics or the ergonomics , after obvious size differences are deducted ?

On the one hand, microscopy is user-dependenent, not just tool-dependent. On the other hand, so many folks ponder the (real or imaginary) quality differences between old microscopes and affordable new microscopes, etc.

[stitchy.mitch]

It could certainly just be a bias in thinking that at the university is what is better simply because it is what I'm used to.

This is likely part of it, but these are the differences I noticed, which I can upload pictures of later:

Poor quality control:

-Chipped field diaphragm lens
-Soft, fuzzy imaging
-Debris and metal shavings in: 4x objective, creating noticeable darkening not present in the other lenses.
-Extremely difficult to use centering screws to adjust stage condenser, which came off centre
-I know the model isnt meant to achieve kohler illumination, but if the aperture diaphragm was remotely centered in the light path, it would help a lot with contrast and resolution (it's offset to the right and as far as I know can't be adjusted).
-Grinding in XY stage controls, which is likely due to metal shavings between the ball bearing and wires holding the ball bearings in place.
-Grinding in the vertical adjustment for the abbe condenser (same reason)
-Loose, wiggly eyepieces
-The image produced in my opinion is far less clear, and while this might be due to manufacturing defects rather than the ability of the glass, it didn't make sense to keep it.

However,

The light source is good, build quality in terms of materials is not bad at all (mostly all metal and very stable)
Online guides provided by OMAX are good

Edit: it may make some sense now as I checked the models at my university and I am accustomed to the use of an Olympus CX41/31