A question for the group. I have a two gemological microscopes. One of those a Meiji trinocular I am considering dedicating to photos and secondary display of video on a laptop.
I had a Motic camera on the Meiji about 10 years ago and was not satisfied with the performance. Basically I could not get enough light through it and the pictures were pretty poor.
Has the performance of these dedicated microscope cameras improved? If not I can put a DSLR on it with an adapter for the trinocular port which can both take photo’s as well as connect to the laptop.
I have no experience with the dedicated microscope cameras, but I would think that, given the low light capabilities of digital cameras these days, a DSLR would do very well. You might search around on some photomicroscopy sites to see what people are using. A lot of those photos will probably be on single objective microscopes (with binocular heads), but the light levels on those microscopes, particularly the older ones that amateurs often use, are probably not any higher than what you are getting on your Meiji. Seems like I remember using a Meiji one time and it was pretty bright, IIRC. Also, if your Meiji has an older incandescent bulb in it, you can probably get an LED bulb replacement that is loads brighter. I did that with my old 1950’s Gemolite and the color temperature got cooler and the light level went way up. Color rendering will be way better with the replacement bulb. Hope this helps. -royjohn
Thank you good point on the lighting. I will have to look at it to see what it is, but I am sure you are correct that it is not LED. I will update that and then I will order an adapter for my Canon DSLR and give it a try.
For anyone that is interested in this link. I changed the tungsten bulb in the meiji scope for an LED equivalent at 5600K. While the color temp is different its a night and day (pun intended) difference in light quality. A quick and easy change with a bulb from Amazon.