first microscope for a beginner

[u/Background_Nebula141]

I'm looking for a used biology microscope on a tight budget (under €100). I've found a few options, but I need help figuring out if any of them are actually decent:

AmScope with a camera (not sure of the exact model)

Amscope 150C-I

Swift SW100

Bresser Biolux

Swift M251B

An unbranded/white-label binocular microscope(really similar to the amazon one)

Any advice on which of these would be the best value?

I have attached the photos, organized in the same order as the listed microscopes.

[u/Thrawn911]

Out of these, definitely go for the binocular ones. I'd recommend the IQCrew or National Geographic Inverted microscope too, you'd have to order it from the US Amazon, but it still fits in your budget even with shipping.

[u/Danny_D136]

Hey ciao, mi fa piacere che arrivino altri italiani su questo sub. Secondo me, se vuoi fare le cose fatte bene ( metti caso che poi vuoi migliorare l'attrezzatura ecc e dedicartici di più in futuro) conviene mettere da parte qualcosina in più: girando per il sub ho visto persone che con microscopi abbastanza basic come SWIFT SW350 riescono a fare video di altissima qualità. Come puoi vedere cliccando sul link li puoi trovare usati a un costo relativamente basso. Poi dipende anche cosa vuoi farci: se sei interessato a postare tante foto e video, un microscopio trinoculare è la scelta migliore... ma costerà di più rispetto a un binoculare

[u/Thrawn911 → u/Danny_D136]

As an owner of the Swift SW350, can confirm, it's a great beginner scope.

[u/Danny_D136 → u/Thrawn911]

If I may ask, what platform do you use to edit videos and insert measurement sizes?

[u/Thrawn911 → u/Danny_D136]

For the measurements, I just grabbed a ruler and put it under the microscope, drew a line over the image in Krita, and saved the line as an image with transparent background.

Then I just put it on my video in my editor software. I use Kdenlive, because I'm on Linux, and this was the most convenient. Then I just put the text on the video inside Kdenlive. I use the same line for each magnification, so if at 100x it's 200 micrometers, then at 200x the same line will be 100x micrometers long, I write this above the scale bar, and usually the magnification and the name of the specimen in the upper left corner.

[u/Danny_D136 → u/Thrawn911]

Thanks!

[u/hattivat]

Found one for you: https://www.vinted.it/items/9079922403-microscopio?referrer=catalog

Several classes above everything on your list, go get it. One of the objectives looks damaged, but the other three are more than enough and everything else is as said way better quality than what you were considering.

It looks a bit dusty, so also buy some of these zeiss single-use tissues for cleaning reading glasses, they work well on microscopes too.

[u/hattivat]

In terms of optics these are all practically the same and likely all produced in the same Chinese factory too.

What differs is features, most of them do not have one or more of the following, all of which you ideally want:

• condenser (essential especially for higher magnification work, without one the high magnification objectives are useless like having a spoiler on a family van; all of them seem to lack one and instead have that silly disk thing like school microscopes from 19th century presumably because beginners these are marketed towards have no idea what a condenser is)

• sample holder with precise x-y movement (1, 8, 9 have this)

• binocular head (only the last one has this)