Microscope camera suggestions?

After reading your intro and you interest in setting up a sales business, if you are looking to include varieties in your inventory 2MP might not be enough. The more you zoom in trying to find these sometimes tiny anomalies, the more your image will pixelate. 5MP is good and still stays within a workable budget

 

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The problem with the ads is quite misleading. It is like saying a Corolla has a 400 hp engine because it supplies 1oo hp to 4 wheels and 4 x100= 400! If you have a USB ( non-medical ) camera that advertise 100X , take a photo of the field of a silver dollar, and it should look like this below. ( Morgan on left, Peace on right) with a lab ( non usb) microscope. ( I teach microbiology off and on at college). This show magnification ( size) and resolution ( separation ) and no software ( faked fill-in of pixels).



The photo below is of the Morgan $ at 400X....you can see the ridges individually, This was done for an old thread on why morgans tones more often and stronger than peace $, but here just to show resolution. Most USB @ 400 power would show a pixelated flat field. The USB manufacturers use the normal projected ( on the tv screen) to calculate magnification. They are almost useless for small varieties IMO, Jim

 

Thank I’ll keep my eye out!

 

Thank you I will keep that in mind and add that into my searching

 

I think I’ll be going with the Koolertron I found on amazon for 115$ with a 20$ of coupon. Looks like a full setup with great reviews! 1-1200 zoom and 12mp!

 

The high magnification numbers on these USB microscopes accounts for the "magnification" from the sensor to a normal-size monitor. So let's assume the sensor is 6mm on edge, and the monitor is a typical 23" (diagonal) so about 19" on long side, or 482mm. Then the "magnification" from sensor to monitor is 482/6=80x. This means when the scope is operating at "300x", its actual optical magnification is 300/80=3.75x. I guess it's much better from marketing perspective to claim "300x" than it is to claim 3.75x, but in my mind it's a little bit disingenuous and really confuses a lot of folks.