This is a question with MANY answers and all of them have merit.  For my 
light microscope I have an Olympus BH-2 with a Qimaging Micropulisher 
5.0camera.  My inverted Flou. microscope is an Olympus IX 71 with the 
Olympus MicroFire 5 MP camera.  I also have it setup so that I can move 
the MicroFire to a second (light) microscope.  Both of these cameras are 
5 megapixil cameras  the MicroFire will take 16 bit images and the 
Qimaging takes 12 bit images.  In addition to the digital cameras ( well 
actually I had it before the digitals') we have a dedicated Olympus 
setup for traditional film.  Ok, that tells you what I have but not the 
really important stuff - like why???  I'll try to make this short but 
there is a lot of information to take into consideration (which means 
that I will skip over a few things).

First one needs to take into account the available funds and where to 
allocate them within your proposed system, as well as whether to go 
digital or stay with the traditional film type of system.

Funds - spend as much as possible on the optics of the microscope, the 
best camera in the world will not correct for bad glass (optics).  It 
really is a matter of user prefferance as to what the make of the scope 
is but do get the best objectives that your budget will allow for.

Film vs Digital - As good as digital is with today's technology (16 MP + 
cameras are available), film still gives the best resolution.  That 
said.... it's pretty darn hard to tell the difference between the two 
when looking at a printed micrograph in a publication.  We've been 
submitting digital micrographs for several years with no complaints. 
 Archived film will last for centuries , digital storage media does not. 
 Photomicroscopy using a film camera actually takes a fair amount of 
skill and knowledge  without even going into the darkroom part of it, 
where as  I can show a student how to take a  digital image in less then 
an hour and have them get good micrographs each time (I said good, not 
great).  It should also be noted that while the old saying is "that film 
is cheap take lots of pictures", electrons are cheaper take more". The 
preceding is true but................  the initial cost of a dedicated 
digital camera, software and computer is MUCH higher than that of a 
dedicated film camera.   Another good point is that the computer is your 
darkroom  for digital images and there are incredible things that you 
can do with programs like Adobe Photoshop.  

I could go on for many pages regarding the other important factors like 
camera bit depth (8, 12, & 16), image analysis printing, software, ad 
nausium but I'm running out of time.

Bob,

Robert Schoonhoven,
UNC-CH





jason madore wrote:

> Can anyone recommend a reasonable camera/scope/computer setup for 
> taking microphotographs of standard IHC slides and TMA slides?
>
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