8 Contents
PART IV
DIGITAL DOCUMENTATION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Chapter 11
Digital Microscope Cameras. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
What You Expect From a Microscope Camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
CCD, CMOS – What the Hell? Physical Things You
Should Know. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Color or Monochrome Cameras? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
You Can Use Color Cameras for Fluorescent
Imaging, But … . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
How to Get Colorful Images with a Monochrome
Camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Fluorescence and Brightfield on the Same Microscope. . . . . . . 67
Sensor Size, Pixel Size and Differences in Resolution . . . . . . . . 67
Binning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Optimum Resolution or Optimum Field of View (FOV) . . . . . . . 69
Collecting More Photons with the Right Camera Adapter. . . . . 69
Sensitivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR or S/N) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Frame Rate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Chapter 12
Microscope Software. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Microscopy with a Finger Tip. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Image Viewer and Image Acquisition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Advanced Research Microscope Software for Experts. . . . . . . . 76
Open Application Developments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Chapter 13
A Brief Look Back. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Visualizing Bacteria With Up to 270× Magnification. . . . . . . . . . 77
The Leeuwenhoek Microscope. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Seeing Cells with the First Compound Microscope . . . . . . . . . . 78
Better Lenses – Better Quality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Calculated Lens Quality – The Breakthrough of Commercial
Microscopy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Development of New Optical Glasses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80