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Natural Science Forum / Physics / Optics / October 2006Accu-scope questions
After many years, am getting back into microscopy as a hobby, now that am retired. Am delighted to see there are now digital scopes. I recently got an Accu-Scope 3090 digital (new model) with a 1.3 megapixel built-in camera. I'm pleased with the instrument, but not so much so with the Micrometrics software. It does a lot, but it is pretty complex. It takes a dozen clicks just to capture and save an image. Anyway, I'm disappointed that the images are not as sharp as I'd like in most cases. While some are very good, others seem to be very fuzzy, no matter how hard I try to focus onscreen. I'm using WinXP SP2 with a 19" LCD monitor. As what I see through the eyepiece is excellent with any of the four objective lenses, am wondering whether the camera or the software may be causing this problem, or something I am or am not doing.. What is the reputation of Accu-Scope? How good is the camera? Anybody have any experience with this model (or any of their scopes)? Any suggestions as to what may be causing this difficulty in getting some of the images as sharp as they should be? Thanks for any info. I tried out a Olympus BHS Microscope and Olympus 3ccd camera. The image quality was perfect. I've tried the conversion kits and off name brands but the image quality is fuzzy and not as good as Olympus. eBay has the Olympus 3ccd microscope cameras sometimes. The camera needs the olympus adapters and a photo eyepiece. A video capture card and bnc cable is used to connect the camera to the computer. > After many years, am getting back into microscopy as a hobby, > now that am retired. Am delighted to see there are now digital [quoted text clipped - 24 lines] > > Thanks for any info. > After many years, am getting back into microscopy as a hobby, > now that am retired. Am delighted to see there are now digital [quoted text clipped - 24 lines] > > Thanks for any info. Accu-scope doesn't exist as a factory. There a trade name and the owners send specs to all the cheap optical factories in the cheap parts of the world. The cheapest vendor wins. Then the vendor quits making fake Rolex's and makes microscopes. So to put it bluntly, I think Accuscopes are crap. I won't work on them because there isn't anything to do. Its like trying to fix a Yugo, your mechanic works his brains out and at the end of the day you have a Yugo. Sorry, you really like microscopes and you really bought one that just doesn't work well. Try looking at the used vendors like Spectra Services (www.spectraservices.com) or google "used microscopes". What you want is one of the major brands, Leica, Olympus, Zeiss or Nikon. These last and preform at world class standards. Sorry, Kevin Cunningham SMS > <desertrat7...@hotmail.com> wrote in messagenews:1161566293.392547.176880@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com... Thanks Kevin, am sorry to learn that Accu-Scope works this way, and I should have spent more time searching I guess. However, my budget was limited and this scope seemed to provide what I wanted for a price I could afford. I was (am) leery about buying a used scope, especially on eBay, as it seems quite a gamble, so opted for a new one. I think I lucked out, as other than some of the saved camera pics, everything else works very well (I'm comparing them to the old Bausch & Lomb workhorse scopes I used to use in college and as an army med lab tech). The mechanism for focus, stage, nosepiece, condenser and diaphragm all work very well. They seem sturdy and smooth to operate. The scope is solid, I'm particularly pleased with the optics as observing proves very good images, even with the oil immersion 100X lens. It is only the pics I take with the camera that seem to vary in sharpness and definition. I may have lucked out and got one built by a competent Chinese :) as have no complaint (yet) with the functioning nor the scope itself, only the camera. I still think it may be the fault of the software rather than the camera. As I said, some images are as sharp as a tack, while others fuzzy. Some more Qs 1. Is there any software out there, at a reasonable price, that would work better in capturing and saving images that will work with this setup? 2. I never before used an iris diaphragm for taking pictures, so maybe I'm at fault here. On several objects, I stopped down most of the way to get the depth-of-focus I wanted to get all the detail on 3D subjects. Does doing this possibly make for less sharp pics? I'll go now and try same thing with it more opened to see. 3. Never before used a scope with a condenser that could be moved up and down. For most, I've kept it as close to the stage as possible, as the lighting seemed OK. Would changing that affect sharpness? I doubt it, but... If anybody can help with these questions, will appreciate it and meanwhile, will have to learn to live with this instrument as long as it does not collapse on me! >> <desertrat7...@hotmail.com> wrote in >> messagenews:1161566293.392547.176880@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com... [quoted text clipped - 46 lines] > meanwhile, will have to learn to live with this instrument as long as > it does not collapse on me! Good points. I didn't propose sending you to e-bay, I am *very* familiar with e-bay problems thats why I recommended dealers that sold used. Spectra Services is a company I trust and recommend to customers, they haven't let me down yet, there are a bunch of dealers like them out there. As to programs I'm mostly familiar with Photoshop. Thats a bit pricey for you. Most of my customers work at universities, factories and hospitals and get Photoshop at quite low prices and they need it anyway. I know there are some similar products out there, google Photoshop. Your last two questions involve Kohler (second scientist at Carl Zeiss) illumination. Set up Kohler by turning on the microscope and put a slide on the stage, focus at low power, switch to 40X and focus then go back to low power and correct any focus difference with the eyepiece controls. Then close down the field diaghragm and center it with the two screws located on the condenser mount. Open the field diaghragm. Now adjust the condenser diaphragm so that it is a bit lower than the diaphragm of the objective and look at the image, you may need to lower it a bit more, depends on the specimen. The condenser diaphragm controls contrast. Give this a go and let us know how you did. Kevin Cunningham SMS Kevin Microscope resellers that sell on websites buy on eBay. I know Spectra Services eBay ID and dozens of others. I would also recommend Spectra Services for someone who has the money to spend for a nice microscope. Here is one example of a used microscope reseller and their eBay ID: EBay ID: 2bjydog Tom H. Henry bjydog@netscape.net Microscope sales website: http://www.bayoptical.com/ Bay Optical Instrument Sales Department 2401 - 15th Street San Francisco, CA 94114 U.S.A. (415) 431-8711 Tel (415) 252-9184 Fax ergoadap@bayoptical.com > Good points. I didn't propose sending you to e-bay, I am *very* familiar > with e-bay problems thats why I recommended dealers that sold used. > Spectra Services is a company I trust and recommend to customers, they > haven't let me down yet, there are a bunch of dealers like them out there. >> <desertrat7...@hotmail.com> wrote in messagenews:1161566293.392547.176880@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com... > [quoted text clipped - 45 lines] >meanwhile, will have to learn to live with this instrument as long as >it does not collapse on me! If some pictures are good, then the camera software is probably okay. Photoshop Elements is a lower cost software package for manipulating pictures after they have been captured. One thing that jumped out to me from your post was stopping down to get depth of field, that will kill sharpness. There isn't much depth of field available when working at the magnifications that you are. One way to simulate depth of field is to take many photos at different focal points and stack them. A new (to me, at least) program for this is Helicon Focus, some info available at: http://www.heliconfilter.com/pages/focus_overview.html They have a 30 day trial period. Watch out, though, they have other stuff on the web site, I got the wrong program the first time I tried. Google "setting up Koehler" and you will get a number of links such as this one: http://darwin.winston.wfu.edu/microscopy/uploads/Main/Koehler.pdf If you are pleased with the viewing image, and occasionally get images that are "sharp as a tack" then it sounds like "pilot error" to me. You need to set up properly (as outlined in the above link). As (a different!) Charles pointed out, a real red flag popped up when you described your use of the condenser diaphram. Using it as you mentioned ("stopped down most of the way") will unquestionably destroy image quality. Also, changing the height of the condenser (ie having it too "low") can have the same deleterious effect on image quality. The software might be clunky to use, but it should have no effect on your image "sharpness"... unless it is set to save files as jpg with extremely high compression... which I doubt is the case. Charlie > I still think it may be the fault of the software rather than the > camera. As I said, some images are as sharp as a tack, while others [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > the lighting seemed OK. Would changing that affect sharpness? I doubt > it, but... Thanks, guys, for some very helpful info. That Helicon Focus looks very interesting, may take advantage of the trial to see how well it works. Eureka! I do have an older ver of Photoshop Elements, and never thought that it might be able to capture images from the microscope. Gave it a look and sure enuf, it certainly does it quite easily. I'll have to fiddle around here a bit, but I like the idea of capturing an imige and then being able to sharpen and otherwise tweak it directly. Great idea. I tried a couple of tests at lower magnification, and tomorrow witll play around with bacteria at 1000X to see how that works. I'm still pleased with the scope (ignorance is bliss), and with Elements to bolster the images, I think I'm going to be happier than I was a while ago. I'll play around with the condenser some more. As I'm a techno phreak (plus a computer geek and now a microscopist) should be able to keep busy fand out of trouble or a while. Appreciate all the advice and help. Thanks again! |
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