Microscope Forums .com

Hi all,

I've been looking into microscopy as purely a hobby. I'm currently looking at my buying choices and I'm wondering how much trouble a 100x objective lens would be to use or add. I've seen lots of stuff at 300x in my mom's ancient microscope and of course I greedily want to see the same stuff at larger magnifications.

I want to go for a 100x objective lens but I've read that oil immersion lenses can be more trouble than they are worth for hobbyists. One site said that oil immersion results in lots of broken slides-- is this referring to how close the lens has to be to the slide? If that and cleaning are the only trouble with oil immersion I'm inclined to go for it.

I've read that I can also opt to buy a 100x objective to add at a later date, but I can't seem to find any info on how this is done. Are objective lenses a standard size, or will I have to find one specifically from a certain manufacturer for a certain scope? Will I have to take off an existing objective to make room for the new one? No idea how this works.

Finally, I'd appreciate feedback on the microscopes I'm considering.

I can find quite a deal on a 1000x microscope here, (Student AF4 for $200-- the lower of the scopes shown) but I know that I may not want to go with the cheapest available option for something like this. The manufacturer is LW Scientific; are they known, trustworthy? Specs are:

monocular head
4x, 10x, 40x, 100x objectives
fluorescent illumination
coaxial coarse & fine focus
iris diaphragm

And a mechanical stage can be added for an extra $40. How much of a necessity is a mechanical stage at 1000x?

There's also the Celestron 44104 500x for $150. It does have fine focus so I'm assuming I can add a 100x objective later if it's not too difficult of a process. Specs are:

Fully-coated glass optics, all-metal body with monocular head
Abbe condenser, iris diaphragm, and electric illuminator for light control
10x and 12.5x eyepieces and 4x, 10x, and 40x objective lenses
mechanical stage

But if I decide to go with the latter and add fine focus later, I feel like I might be wasting money since a quick google turns up 100x objectives ranging from around $100 to $500.

Edit: Someone also directed me to check out Amscope, (or precision*world on Ebay) and they seem to have some ridiculous deals. I am looking at this 2000x scope for $150 or the same but 1000x (minus a 20x eyepiece) for $140. I've searched far and wide on the internet and can't find any evidence that they are a scam or that their scopes are of poor quality. Many positive reviews on ebay, a couple of forum threads with customers claiming they are legit and their scopes are fine quality. Any experience with Amscope here? Their prices seem a bit too good to be true.

Thanks for any insight you can offer!
-Stacy

In MHO most scopes under $500 new will be cheap Chinese crap. I made the unwise choice to buy one of these and soon found the optical quality was poor and soon after I started using it I had a great deal of back lash in the fine focus.

I would suggest you look on eBay for a good name brand scope used. I bought a very nice Nikon for $300 and I have seen many others there for even less. I bought this as a gift for my college age granddaughter who is carrying a 4.0 at MSU and plans to be a vet. I could not resist trying it out. I compared it against a “500 power” microscope the local hobby store recommended. This was a scope I paid over $200 for. Using some prepared slides I purchased I compared images.

The Chinese scope has only one light intensity. I tried several slides at different magnifications. The 500x was worthless. In fact I got acceptable performance at 200X and 100x.

The Nikon was so much better I have a hard time describing it. It was like looking thru a piece of wax paper (cheap scope) then taking it away. There was a difference it the way I used the Nikon. I would focus first then dial back the light intensity to get the best image. The highest power I tried was 400x (40x with 10x eye piece) it was so much sharper and more contrast. Even at 100x on the Nikon I could see detail I could not see at 200x on the other scope. I did not try 1000x because it said oil on it and I know about that.

I took the $200 scope back and they “up graded “me to a scope with the label of a telescope maker I know about. This was more then twice as much. It looked very much like the Nikon. And it was much better then the $200 unit. In a matter of hours it developed slop in the focus. It had a movable stage, but it was useless because of all the backlash. The image was better but not as good as the Nikon and then only in the center.

I took it back and they asked what was I thinking The Nikon is like a $2000 scope with some of the world’s best optics0 how could I even think the Chinese scopes would compare.

End result- I got a credit and order another Nikon off eBay for $299 plus 48 for shipping

FOM

Nikon are by far the best microscope for they allow crisp viewing.

Objective lens will sometimes transfer from one microscope to another but not not always. I would only get the objective lens for the microscope brand.

Oil Immersion - 100x lens:
Prepare your side and drop a cover glass on it.
Then drop a bead of immersion oil ontop the cover glass.
Dip the Objective lens into the oil. You should not worry about breakage. If you are breaking the cover glass then your focus or adjustment may be off.

Remember to clean the oil off the lens after each use so you don't get a build up on your objective lens.

Tammy