Greetings All,
There are a couple of ways this can be handled depending what type of
set-up you want and how much you have to spend.
All of the major Microscope makers (Olympus included) have dedicated
digital camera bodies that are semi-permanently attached to the scope head's
third port. If you are unfamiliar, it is a tube coming out of the top of the
microscope head that sits atop a beam splitter to send a projected image to
the camera. It has been used with film cameras for decades. The dedicated
digital cameras are high-resolution (5-6 megas) and very expensive (5-10K
range). They have to be attached to a computer to download the image files.
I checked out the Olympus system a few years ago and it is excellent but
much too costly and elaborate for my simple needs. Our pathology practice
was asked to show images at the weekly hospital Cancer Conference. We have a
film camera on one microscope but since I usually get the patient names the
day before/same day as the conference, digital was the best way to go. I
have found the best camera to use (at that time ) was a N*k*n Coolpix 950.
It is only 2.5 Mega but that is adequate for images that are shown on a 25
inch monitor or a digital projector. What allows this camera to work is that
it has internal focusing. This is crucial since we take the images through
one of the microscope eyepieces. This has become a little easier since we
purchased an eyepiece adaptor that attaches to the filter threads of the
Coolpix. The other end is a tube the same diameter as the eyepiece. Just pop
out the eyepiece and pop in the camera. The adaptor has internal lenses that
replace those in the eyepiece. The adaptor is made by Optem/Avimo Precision
Instruments of Fairport, NY (info@xxxxxxxxxxxxx).
To take the images simply focus on the LED screen as usual. It works best
if you turn off the flash and set focus to Macro. To display the images we
simply take the camera to conference and hook it directly to the moniter via
the RCA video plug on the back. The coolpix has the typical digital camera
nested menus that I despise but it IS easy to navigate since it displays 12
images at a time as thumbnails.
Hope this long ramble was of some help.
Charlie Geilfuss
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