compare bright field and phase contrast

[lagoonatic]

still figuring out the phase contrast kit from Amscope - here are a couple of images of what I believe to be Sorastrum from a sample from the Saint Lucie River, taken with Amscope's MU503 camera on the T660 fitted with their PCT200 phase contrast turret and 40x plan ph objective:

brightfield

PhaseContrastCompBFShots-1.jpg (90 KiB) Viewed 4388 times

phase contrast

PhaseContrastCompBFShots-2.jpg (116.28 KiB) Viewed 4388 times

[Greg Howald]

good photos. looks very much like what i would expect from my 660. greg

[lagoonatic]

Thanks Greg!

And, after looking at it again, I believe my initial ID was incorrect. I would say the algae is Monactinus judging by the cell shapes.

[75RR]

.
Nice catch. You will find that the more transparent a subject, the more effective Phase is.

[Rossf]

Hello-I can concur with 75RR-I love phase and originally would observe phase for everything-but a lot of pond microbes can look just as good in bright field or darkfield-but when you flip to phase and massive numbers of soil bacteria suddenly show up like magic…it’s well..magic! I now it’s not possible with the amscope phase set but I’ve noticed turrets that allow the phase annulus to sit in the bright field slot with iris-if you close down the iris just a bit you often get a nice subtle phase effect without an annulus-not all objectives but most-and it can just tame the background enough to stay in bright field but get a bit more contrast.
Have fun
Regards ross