Omax Amscope Touview Cameras

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microb
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Joined: Wed Mar 27, 2019 6:39 am

Omax Amscope Touview Cameras

#1 Post by microb » Thu Aug 27, 2020 5:29 pm

There are these c-mount microscope cameras available that ship with toupview. The standard camera apps on Windows can not see them, so you have to use the toupview that comes with it. And the toupview's can not see other toupview cameras. So you can't just run the latest software and see the older amscope/omax whatever camera that worked fine with its version of toupview. Maybe some dll's can be copied around, but that seems like a really simple ting on their side to fix.

Skipping the software issues, I think I'm wasting a lot of time using these cameras to test and try to get even an ok looking image. There are always issues. The 2MB ones have the Fuji camera sensor issue with purple in the middle of the image if too much light shoots up into the sensor -- which is basically a microscope image. The USB3 one picture here has been used on multiple different set-ups from Nikon, Leica, and Olympus -- and the best images are just well it's an image I guess. There is purple at times, so the lamp has to be dimmed a bit. Camera stand work with a 55mm has been the best results and still Fuji sensor issues seem to be present but less noticeable than the 2mb.

So I got some DLSR camera mounts and I'm going to try a Cannon DLSR that is supposed to also have software support with the open camera projects out there. I'd like to be able to write code to capture when I want, motor something, and capture again.

Does anyone have success with these toupview cameras? They are forsale on Amazon and everywhere else like they're something worth having. And I think that's why I'm really starting to have a negative bias against them. The ToupView package looks like a full featured set-up, so people use it and a better package is really needed. The image stitching never worked. It gives images with diagonal slashes in it for a simple refocus transition video. For reflectance images, forget it it's just junk. And then it hangs at times. So stitching is a no. Even the image capture is annoying. You have to remember to switch back to the live. You can't snap an image and snap again. The UI is in a dead tab now -- at times a person might be refocusing and wonder why it's not changing -- oh, the tab thing again. Who wrote this? They seem to be holding a spot and no else wants to bother to write a better set-up.

What camera mount would be good for this Leica DM IL? I have Olympus setups that I'll try.
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mrsonchus
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Re: Omax Amscope Touview Cameras

#2 Post by mrsonchus » Thu Aug 27, 2020 10:49 pm

Hi, I use a Toupcam 5mp (and used to use a 2mp) of USB2 persuasion, with Toupview. They are very good indeed, as is the superb Toupview software. I posted re this a little while ago here's a link to it...

Toupview can stitch in real time, while showing the developing result as it's stitched, including a frame around the live-image that changes colour according to the quality of the focus and matching at the current scan point! It is also able to stack live, simply by clicking the edf button, moving the focus through the range wanted for stacking, then clicking the edf button again - hey-presto the stack is before you - quite amazing! No intermediate images for either stacking or stitching are captured during these live-mode operations, Alternatively the traditional image-by-image sets may be captured then stacked or stitched in the conventional way. Toupview and a Toupcam are a killer combo for sure. For single-imaging of highest quality I use a Canon 200D DSLR (APSc sensor size - will upgrade this to full-frame soon as my Olympus 2.5x projection eyepiece and optics match the full-frame diagonal) of 26mp.

I personally think the secret is in the quality of the photo-tube intermediate optics - I have the full Olympus sets including the PE2.5x eyepiece for both the Toupcam and the DSLR.
John B

microb
Posts: 729
Joined: Wed Mar 27, 2019 6:39 am

Re: Omax Amscope Touview Cameras

#3 Post by microb » Fri Aug 28, 2020 2:12 am

Well I'm not finding the joy in these products. Maybe I can find someway to upgrade ToupView 3.7 that came with the USB 3 camera I got. This one does not do live stitch, but with video capture. The older version with the USB 2.0 ones does it with individual images.

But even then the hardware sold with these at Amazon, Amscope, and places have issues. I just had to take the USB 3.0 one apart to clean it. It actually had smudges/dust inside between the IR filter and the sensor. It needed clean inside not just the surface. Also unlike the others I've bought, this one had a black soft ring inside the c-mount part. I just removed that because it was disintegrating. I thought cleaning the outside glass slip cover over the lens would have done it and maybe the residue was just from the ring falling apart, but nope. So that's now two of five of these I've had to take apart to get rid of blobs in the image that rotate with the camera on a microscope.
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