) behind last year and have an itch to dive into microscopy at home. I spent all of my time working on confocal/fluorescence scopes in grad school + work but I love the idea of more accessible techniques such as dark-field, polarized-light, and phase-contrast. I had a personal AmScope T490 throughout grad school, but would prefer somewhat higher quality optics now. I plan on diving into the subforums, but if anyone upfront has been exceptionally pleased with a trinocular microscope build (for < $1000) that covers one or many of my plans, please reply! I'm currently keeping an eye on Nikon Labophot and Olympus BH2 availability on ebay, mainly because I'm familiar with them being known for versatility.
I also have a DSLR sitting around and really love the idea of using it for image-stacking micrographs (which I know next-to-nothing about as of now)! I've seen very impressive end-products and feel inspired to look at some common setups (rails, objectives, lens, lighting). Again, I'd love to hear about systems that have worked...not sure about pricing of a full setup.
Happy to join the community!
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