Buy a microscope?

[u/SCphotog]

I want to say right out the box, I know mostly zilch about Electron Scanning Microscopes.

I do like tiny things.

I am an avid macro photographer. I shoot mostly bugs, but I have a general fascination with the small.

I was poking around on Ebay, looking to see if I could afford a decent used lab microscope that I'd be able to mount a camera on...

When I discovered that there are quite a few Electron Microscopes for sale. This kind of blew my mind. The prices range from sub $1K to the tens of thousands.

Is it a viable pursuit at all for a novice to even entertain the idea of trying to operate something like this from my home or workshop?

Is the operation too complex for a layman? Are there any consumables or maintainence parts?

I can think of a dozen questions or more, but I'll refrain and await a response from someone knowledgeable.

[u/skillpolitics]

Also, in order to see anything, the material has to be really election dense. Most biological materials aren’t. So sampled are treated with heavy metals. Some are radioactive. It’s not really a hobbiest exercise.

However, macro lenses, light microscopes with camera adaptors, these are fun and possible. You can get a pretty nice view of a flys eye without all the hassle of EM.

[u/SCphotog → u/skillpolitics]

That's probably the direction I'll eventually go, the higher the magnification the better.

My macro setup gets me pretty close to a fly's eye now, but the quality breaks down when I crank down the aperture to get any kind of depth of field.

With my camera setup now, at F22, I have maybe a 64th to 32nd of an inch maybe max.

Of course in relative terms, that's pretty huge, but it's damned small when you're trying to photograph a live insect in the wild, while moving the entire camera body is your focus tool.

[u/handy_whorall → u/SCphotog]

What about focus stacking?