Jacobospider5
Arachnopeon
- Joined
- Nov 10, 2010
- Messages
- 28
hey guys i wanted to know what scopes you guys had for examing your ts and what magnification they are. I want to know if I should get something that is 5x or 10x in magnification. Thanks
Could be! But not I'm thinking on the idea of a KBT, strapped down on a little gurney, Frankenstein-style, under a microscope.Maybe he's just talking about examining the exuviae.
This is exactly what I do and it is best to invest the money in a good stereo microscope with as high a magnification range as you can afford and the lighting for it. It's better to have more than you think you need than find out your lighting or magnification isn't adequate after you went through the trouble of prepping your specimen. I ran into this problem just the other day when I attempted to key to species a male spider I found in my bathroom with a body length of 2 mm.I want to look at dead specimens and work with identification keys
Sweet baby Jesus, I just looked up the cost of that thing. I'll need to get into the hobby a lot more before that is warranted. Do you have a way to collect images with it? I know some microscopes have video and photo attachments.AM Scope trinocular stereo zoom microscope with 7X to 65X
Microscopes from the major optics manufacturers like Nikon, Olympus, and Leica are professional grade scopes and cost in the thousands if not tens of thousands. The old used Wild M8s are super expensive as well and sometimes don't even have all the necessary parts. Sometimes you can pay upwards of a thousand dollars for just the head of a Wild microscope and still have to buy, ocular lenses, a stand, and stand alone fiber optic lighting. None of those are options for the amateur or even for institutions with low funds.If one is looking to do work that non-slide based, such as the OPs, then stereomicroscopes are the solution as Apho noted. If you have the money, the global leader in this area is Leica Microsystems.
If you can't afford that, one could get older Leica's under the name of Wild (an acquisition of Leica's). The optics of either are equaled by no other manufacturer when it comes to stereos. In fact they are so good that people don't want to "upgrade" from their Wild or even more modern Leica's.
Nikon and Olympus are OK, but not as good as Leica.
Mind you, I don't know what your price point is, for your uses you may not want a Leica, esp if it's only a hobby. But if you have the money, get a Leica.
The third "tube" in a trinocular microscope is for inserting or attaching a camera to the microscope. Mine being a trinocular has a photo tube but it is highly inadequate for taking pictures with. There is not enough light making it through the photo tube to a camera's image sensor. I get better pictures by holding my iPhone up to one of the eye pieces and taking pictures that way. The images are far from professional quality, but it is very workable, suites my needs, and appear better than some of the pictures produced by biologists with professional microscopes with cheap cameras in taxonomic papers. If you want to see examples of my microscope pictures, you can search for my Aphonopelma armada thread. In that one there are two pictures I took using the method I described.Sweet baby Jesus, I just looked up the cost of that thing. I'll need to get into the hobby a lot more before that is warranted. Do you have a way to collect images with it? I know some microscopes have video and photo attachments.
That was an interesting thread to read. I'll have to read more on this. Thanks.If you want to see examples of my microscope pictures, you can search for my Aphonopelma armada thread. In that one there are two pictures I took using the method I described.
Microscopes from the major optics manufacturers like Nikon, Olympus, and Leica are professional grade scopes and cost in the thousands if not tens of thousands. The old used Wild M8s are super expensive as well and sometimes don't even have all the necessary parts. Sometimes you can pay upwards of a thousand dollars for just the head of a Wild microscope and still have to buy, ocular lenses, a stand, and stand alone fiber optic lighting. None of those are options for the amateur or even for institutions with low funds.