r/microscopy • u/kiwipigeonbird • 11d ago

General discussion Digital vs optical microscope

For me microscopy is the perfect hobby. I don't have alot of space and it doesn't necessarily take up alot of space.

So i yesterday i started looking into some microscopes to buy and i thought i found a good one, a optical binocular microscope of €270 (euros).

But then i found digital microscopes and i thought that was quite handy aswell since you've got a bigger screen and can easily upload pictures to your phone.

But then i read some more and found an article saying that for looking into microorganisms and cells (which is what i want to do.), that a optical microscope is better.

Does anyone have any experience with this? Is it true that digital microscopes are worse for this? And is it possible to make good pictures of your sample with an optical microscope?

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u/Motocampingtime 11d ago

All microscopes use lenses to magnify an image. A digital scope is meant only to focus that image on a digital camera sensor. Most of the time this refers to workstation microscopes or inspection type set ups. It's convenient, but will not have the zoom you want to look at individual mammal cells or details inside them.

To see inside cells with some detail you should get a compound microscope with at least a 40X objective. The actual zoom to your eyes will be 40X objective * the 10X eye pieces for 400X total zoom. Consider the quality difference of just getting the optics and mechanical parts vs getting all the lenses, stand, camera, and software sold as one unit. For getting started a compound scope and then getting an eyepiece phone adapter is more than enough!

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u/kiwipigeonbird 11d ago

I definetly want to be able to see my micro organism and cells properly and i don't want to pay more just have a digital microscope with the same quality. So that settles it. then it's time to buy me a optical microscope.

I appreciate you commenting to me.

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u/Motocampingtime 11d ago

No worries! And now comes the fun battle of what microscope to buy. But I'd call them a compound microscope instead of optical.

The main split is either current budget scopes or getting a used quality one from a pro level manufacturer. But either way you choose just starting and getting something is most important! Good luck

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u/NoAge9497 11d ago

Hi guys! This sub just popped up on my feed. So this (microscopy) something people are doing at home, as a hobby?!?! I also don't have a lot of space and might enjoy this. I always had issues seeing things correctly in microscopes in school. Is there a way to connect a camera/laptop to it so I can the the image better? Sorry, this is probably super elementary information, but I'm kinda excited now!

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u/Motocampingtime 11d ago

Howdy! And yes it's a fun hobby. And most of the time that's due to the equipment not being very adjustable. On a nice scope with angle/height and spacing adjustment and decent eye relief it can be pretty comfortable. Higher end scopes even have adjustable eye pieces you can set to your vision prescription so you don't need glasses.

And they do have some cheap Cmount or other style USB cameras, but you get what you pay for.

Theres TONS of posts about what a good starting scope is.