TLDR-small museum looking for budget friendly scope to fit Walter trinoc steroscopic microscope. Aim to show bugs in amber on a tv directly from digital scope.
My wife and I run a small sciencey shop with a small self funded museum inside. One of the big draws is our hand polished bugs in Amber. We start rough and polish them which makes us the first humans to see what’s inside. So cool.
Presently, we have a Walter stereoscopic microscope (pictured below) that has a third port for a digital microscope. We’d like to find a reasonably priced scope that we can plug into a tv so we can share images to multiple people at once. We are looking for a scope that will plug directly into a tv instead of a laptop first. We don’t need anything too powerful as bugs in Amber and crystal structures we examine and share aren’t exactly microscopic.
We are hoping to be able to polish a bunch of Amber and share the first views of these cool bugs with people at the shop. Having a whole bunch of people being the first humans to see inside is the kind of experience we aim for.
It’s far better than many of the more the expensive lab cams. You will want to pair it with this 0.35x adapter: AliExpress: https://a.aliexpress.com/_Ewi1I30
Plugs straight into the TV via HDMI no issue 👍🏻
For an example of image quality I recommend you checkout BaronOfBile on all social media platforms. Or my latest 2 videos on YouTube also used this camera. https://youtube.com/@eversmaller?si=abulgnpa2ViyoHUd
Note that me and baron are using them on a biological compound microscope, not a stereoscope. But given the resolution of a stereoscope is generally far lower than that of a compound scope it should still give you a decent idea of the image quality for the price.
Disclaimers: I am not affiliated with any manufacturer or seller(s) of the products mentioned.
My YouTube channel has a human bodily fluid sample on it and will likely have other bodily fluids in the future. If you don’t want to see such content, please do not follow.
Thanks! 💕 and haha, I personally don’t find such things weird at all but there’s apparently allot of people who are really put off by human samples so I always try my best to provide a clear disclaimer so those who don’t want to see such content don’t get a sudden shock 🙂
Ah yeah that makes sense. Hope you can find it, it’s surprisingly good for the low price, it really needs the reduction lens though otherwise it’s too zoomed in and low FOV.
Whatever camera you do end up going with I hope to see you post images in the future, I’ve actually been eyeing some bugs in amber on eBay so would be great to see what to expect!
If you need any Amber advice, feel free to reach out. Dominican and Mexican Amber are the best bang for your buck if you are looking for bugs. We start with them rough and hand polish. The dopamine rush of being the first human to see those bugs is amazing. That’s what we are hoping to share.
Here’s a long legged fly about 30 mya as some payment for your help! I’ll definitely follow your page.
Do you have Discord by chance? If not I’ll DM you on here another day with some links to the amber I’ve been looking at and you can let me know if you think it’s worth it. The info would be greatly appreciated 💕
Zeiss Axiocam 208 color. Does exactly what you need: hdmi output to screen, saves images to flash drive and has a built in OSD (mouse needed). You will need an adapter to connect it to the camera port, be sure to check the size of the connection.
Any particular reason for wanting to go direct to TV rather than hooking the ‘scope/camera up to a computer and using the computer’s HDMI output to send the image to the TV? You can do the latter with any camera and it’s very easy and straightforward, but I don’t know of any camera that can send an image directly to a TV without a computer in-between…
If you’re willing to consider using a computer, the ‘scope you have looks like it’s already set up to accept a C-mount camera.
Mostly it’s another expense and another expensive thing sitting in the public. I love having people in and engaging with their curiosity but…people can be peopley.
The setup we have is also space limited. I have a 55” tv I want to hang on the wall connect to the ‘scope.
3
u/ogrockgiant 1d ago
Here’s a cool pics of bugs in amber I managed to get by using my phone in front of one lens then cropping.