hi All, I've decided to take the plunge and invest in a good stereo microscope that will take good close-ups.... my digital camera just isn't doing the trick. Any pointers? Recommendations for a product? thanks! andy
I have always used a lab surplus B & L Stereozoom 7x- 30X scope, and use a canon A590IS to shoot down one eyepiece, and it works pretty well. The zoom allows you to use a lesser magnification for the coin and the higher for the details, and the resolution is excellent. Many of these were used for semiconductor assembly, biology and geology labs, etc. and often are less expensive on ebay than a surplus house. It should come with a pair of 10X eyepieces, but I have alwo bought a single 5X eyepiece I can substitute for one to shoot through, and that gives me 3.5X, which is good for all except silver dollar size. For those, I can just use the macro function of the camera. One important thing that might be missing on a lesser binocular scope, is that the B &L has diopter adjustment for one eye, so a person who needs more help in one eye than the other can arrange it so they don't need their glasses using it, both eyes will be sharply focused. I get so use to that, I often have to look around hard to find my glasses Often if you ask at a school or college who services their scopes,that serviceperson often has used ones he has taken as tradeins as many labs want them now with builtin cameras and USB connections, memory, etc. Usually cheap chinese models the service people love for their problems. IMO. Jim
Desertgem, not to hijack this thread but I have a nice trinocular stereo microscope that I view only with so far. I do have the ring attachment that the camera lens fits to but when I look through it it shows the coin way to small... Will that change with a macro lens or is there something else I am doing wrong? Thanks
