New Addition. Article coming soon.

[einman]

So I finally acquired an Olympus SZh to compare against its competitors in the same time period from Nikon, AO, B&L and Zeiss. I will be submitting an article soon to the magazine discussing the scopes and my opinions on their performance, utility, costs etc.

Below are some pics of the new arrival. I would have preferred an Olympus SZH10 but given the cost I could not pass up on this one.

[JimT]

Looking forward to your article and comparison photos. BTW, based on the poster on the wall in your first photo you must live in an interesting place.

[einman]

Looking forward to your article and comparison photos. BTW, based on the poster on the wall in your first photo you must live in an interesting place.

My interests are quite varied. I had several live snakes in my lab until recently. However given my time is limited I am focusing on insects. Probably should take down the poster to make room for one on Arachnids I have. More appropriate to my studies.

[KurtM]

How I wish I could take it for a test drive, wow!

Like the illuminators too. Do the pingpong ball diffusers work pretty well?

[Tom Jones]

I have an SZH too. You're going to love it!

Tom

[einman]

I also have a Nikon SMZ-U which was my favorite scope. I have wanted to compare these 2 for quite some time.

[einman]

How I wish I could take it for a test drive, wow!

Like the illuminators too. Do the pingpong ball diffusers work pretty well?

Kurt,
You may recall some earlier posts in which I described usig the ping pong ball diffusers quite some time ago. They work well but do cut down on the light considerably. Those, as you probably know, are IKEA LED lights. Would be great if they had a little more wattage.

Alternatively I have used some Older Bausch Lomb fiberoptic illuminators with filters placed inside the casing. Worked great.

[einman]

Ok here is my first camera shot of a Wood Cockroach. Interestingly enough the adapter I used to mount my T3I is the same used for my AO microscopes. It was made by RAfcamera. Unfortunately it is not parfocal. This is using the SZH-PT35 camera tube on the left of the microscope. The one to the back of the microscope require a 150mm tube apparently which I have yet to locate for any reasonable price. Although I did spend some money trying alternative approaches which did not pan out.

This is using the 1X objective at 7.5X on the zoom. Lighting is not very good as I was just testing the set-up and had only one illuminator on the specimen. But I was excited to have just found the AO adapter that worked. Camera set to "no flash". No fiddling with settings yet.



Better Lighting also not in petri dish. Reflections make a big difference.


These pics were just a quick screen of the camera/scope. I will do more in depth with the article. You may notice the second pic has a bluish tint as the light incorporates a blue filter. I actually prefer the more "yellow" light most of the time for reflected light. It varies with the subject.

[billben74]

Nice pics. Look forward to the article.