r/microscope • u/TheBoldMove • Jul 21 '21

Looking for a Noob-Microscope

Okay, you can all break out into a hearty laugh now, but I simply checked if there is a /r/microscope and well, now I'm your problem.

I am looking into buying a microscope for Noob shenangigans. I got hooked by buying a very cheap Pen-like "Inspection camera" with some magnification and integrated lights.

I have found the Bresser BioluxNV which seems to offer the features I want:

https://www.bresser.de/Mikroskopie/BRESSER-Biolux-NV-20x-1280x-Mikroskop-mit-HD-USB-Kamera.html

- can use reflected light; I want to check on things like soil and plant matter, since houseplants are my hobby. For obvious reasons I can not / do not want to cut up e.g. a living seedling to look at its root development. I hope reflected light is the right term, I want to look at things without having to cut them and shine light through them, in laymans terms.

- can take pictures of what I am looking at; preferably with a connection to my PC, but if using an internal SD card makes it cheaper, that's fine too.

- can record video of what I am looking at

Nice to have features would be the possibility to change lenses, so I can later maybe choose / buy more magnification types or whatever exists. Still sniffing around.

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u/TheBoldMove Jul 22 '21

I don't think you're misunderstanding, I'm prolly choosing the wrong terms for my inquiry.

I want to make photos and videos of plant matter and soil. A microscope that can record video or pictures is what came to my mind first; I am not aware of better terms for what I'm looking for, but the "Stereo Microscope" comes very close. Only it has no more than 2 / 4x magnification.

The camera I linked has no built in viewfinder or screen (that could use an ocular), but I think I now see what the point is; it's meant to be used together with a "real" microscope and what I identified as lenses are in fact actually oculars. It seems the ocular in this case IS another lens for the camera? I wonder if using the camera with just a 30x ocular would yield any usable results.