MicrobeHunter.com Microscopy Forum

Does the light source type( wave spectrum) affect the color performance of apochromats? More specifically if one was to change the light source from halogen to LED.

The image should have about the same sharpness and no colour fringes. But since LED light has low emittance at around 500nm you may see less intensive colours in the orange range. For a pathologist this might be a disadvantage.

Every microscope that has been fitted with apochromats, almost since halogen light became an illumination option for microscopes, has used halogen illumination until probably only the past 3 years, when led has been offered as an option for certain models. Led systems from the big 4 makers are very expensive, in excess of 1000.00 and are using superior collimating systems such as a fly eye system. The halogen systems on the other hand are not all that different than any system made over the past 40 years. Fine halogen lighting systems are filtered, of course. You need to hit the correct colour temp. and have a collimated system.
There is no difference in the illumination required between achromat or apochromat optics. Differences do occur in the condensing requirements, something that a crappy led system could easily f up.