Microscope Suggestions: What do you use?

[WalleyeGuy]

I want to get a microscope to help me with growing various phytoplankton and identifying things in the tank that are beyond my ability to see with my eye or a simple magnifying glass. I have some issues like tremors from a brain injury and a bit of an issue from time to time with controlling my hands well. Age has gotten the better of me lol. I thought that many here in Reef2Reef might have scopes and be willing to share their expieriences with them. Might be helpful in my making a wise choice :)

I have seen a couple threads where people were talking about all some of the relatively cheaper China versions like AmScope 150 or such. I thought what the heck - why not ask what you all use and why. something i wish i had done before it made the purchase of amazon i did over the weekend - duh!

I did myself buy a AmScope 149c-E2 monocular scope that came with a 2mp usb camera. I had two major issues

1st - trying to position a slide where i needed it with my tremors was hit and miss with lots of misses lol and start over :) there was no way to position the slide and then mover the stage - i had to try to move the slide manually and when i needed to move it again with my issues sometimes i moved it a mm and sometimes half off the stage lol. Anyhow - the fix stage with manual moving the slides was a no go for me. I can't color in between the lines anymore with these hands lol

2nd issue was a failure to understand when I ordered this scope was that the usb camera took the place of the eyepiece /facepalm. Hello.... compound microscope... eyepiece PLUS the objective lens = the magnification. So when i saw the 40x-1000x I figured I was good2go and forgot the camera wold only use the objective lens which are 4x-10x-40x and so my magnification limit was 40x with the camera. I never even got as far as trying to figure out how to digitally zoom stuff at that point. When I put the camera in and went from seeing nice little phyto cells to tiny green dots I had a major Homer Simpson moment of clarity about the mechanics of it all and sorta gave up for the day.

Currently I have the AmScope 149c-E2 all boxed back up and ready to return. Now I am looking at new options. I would love to hear what you all use out there and what things I should be looking at before I try ordering again :)

 

[RobertK]

I use a 50 year-old American Optical binocular microscope so can't help you pick out a new scope, but I recently bought this device that holds a cell phone to take photos and videos through the microscope's eyepiece. It clamps onto the eyepiece and has 3 knobs for lining up the phone's camera with the eyepiece in the X, Y and Z axes. Maybe not as good as a dedicated digital camera but works pretty good for a cell phone camera. There are some cheaper plastic alternatives but this one is all metal and has better control than the others on Amazon. If you get it pay the extra $5 and get the one with the bluetooth remote.

Here is a pic of some dinoflagellates from a friend's tank, taken with this device and an iPhone 15 Pro.