Natural Science Forum / Physics / Optics / May 2005

Hello John

Digital Blue's QX3+ and QX5 are neat gizmos for the price to get
enthusiasts of any age interested in microscopy, but as you say they
were aimed at youngsters and the capabilities are limited. The QX5 was
a major upgrade from the QX3 with LED illumination and better sensor.

gives quite competent images but it's not so good with transmitted
light especially at '200x' as the built in diffuser knocks back the
light too much and gives noisy images.

There's a wide range of online resources for the QX3 to get the most
out of them which also apply to the QX5. Here's a few:

http://www.playdigitalblue.com/
http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/optics/intelplay/
http://www.sciences.demon.co.uk/w-rotha.htm
http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/search/frames.html - Type QX3 or QX5
into search box.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/qx3/

If you have the QX5 and don't mind tinkering, the bottom lighting can
be improved eg by removing the diffuser and bottom light and sitting on
top of a 35 mm film slide viewing light box which significantly
improves the image quality. A step up from the QX5 is e.g. Motic's
Digiscope 150 / 300 range which offer both optical and digital imaging
but still only VGA.

If you were considering something better for digital imaging on the
macro / lower power micro scale, there's quite a few options depending
on your budget. For macro of larger bugs, digicams like the Coolpix 9xx
/ 4500 series can get very close and macro adapters can get even
closer. There's also various ways of imaging through better quality low
power optical microscopes such as attaching consumer digicams, webcams
etc. There's a wealth of enthusiast resources on the web, Gordon
Couger's website is an excellent compilation and buying guide.

http://www.couger.com/microscope/links/gclinks.html

Have fun!

regards

David