Olav Viking no, it’s a scam. All they’re doing is changing the eye piece lenses to achieve higher magnification without taking the rest into account. Hence, why it looks like shit at 3000x
This same scam applies to telescopes. In reality, the maximum usable magnification of a telescope is just a little bit more than the diameter of the objective lens or mirror in millimeters. A 200 mm primary mirror maxes out at about 240X. Yet manufacturers will claim magnification of 1000X or more for scopes with 50 or 60mm objectives.
Yes, and the purpose of telescopes is also to capture light, to make faint stars (etc) visible, and not only to magnify. I used to be (still am a bit) into amateur astronomy as well and when I bought a telescope years ago, this issue about unrealistic magnification was already covered in magazines. I guess consumers want to have a simple way of comparing the quality, and magnification seems to be the most easily understood one, even though it's not the best measure.
I spend a lot of time photographing stars and you are right. There is a huge difference between magnification and what can actually be resolved. Additionally, those high-end magnifications you need very solid (read heavy) tripods and the ability to track stars as they move.
On top of that the higher magnification you go, the smaller the exit pupil. So not only is the image getting blurrier as you go higher, but it's getting dimmer as well! That's why larger aperture telescopes show so much more detail. You're can hit higher magnifications with a larger exit pupil. Exit pupil is the size of the image that gets reflected from the telescope. Basically what gets projected onto your eye through the eyepiece. If you have a pupil that's 7mm fully dilated, and an exit pupil that's only 0.5mm, you're wasting 6.5mm of light gathering from your eye. (At least that's what I remember it being back when I was super into this stuff, if I'm wrong someone correct me.)
@@AverageJoe8686 Thanks. I do actually spend a lot of time photographing stars. And you are right, slightly off-center is helpful though it feels strange at first. To me, the Andromeda Galaxy is just a faint blur when not looking directly. If I look straight at it, then I see nothing.
Randomly at exactly 4:37am I have found out I want this to be another hobby of mine and realized I should look up things to have a better understanding. I’m glad I did bc all I was focused on was the magnification. I’m glad I found this video. Thank you. You saved me a lot of money from people likely praying on beginners like myself.
It's not quite as simple as that. Using visible light it's not possible to resolve anything meaningful below a certain size as even blue light has a wavelength of about 0.0000004 meters (0.0004mm). All you would get magnifying something that small up is a blob regardless of lens quality.
Visible light or optical microscopes can't resolve details smaller than 1 wavelength. From violet to red, that wavelength ranges from 200nm to 700nm. Since blue light has shorter wavelengths, it would be possible to see clearer details in filtered blue light than red. Why is 1 wavelength the limit? The reason is that light is a wave so it diffracts or bends at the scale of 1 wavelength. Why do the images made by interfering electromagnetic waves get blurred by 1 wavelength? This reasoning is getting deep enough that it is hard to explain. Anyway, you can still resolve finer detail with a microscope. Resolving finer details just requires a jump to a completely different type of microscope such as an electron microscope or x-ray microscope. If websites selling electron microscopes listed their maximum powers, that would be really funny since I doubt the typical electron microscope shopper would be swayed by those numbers.
@@iarrcsim2323 All perfectly true, and all *irrelevant* to the practical limit of visual microscopy limitations. The limits imposed by wavelength limits are *several* magnitudes smaller than the limits imposed by practical objective diameters.
How is it correct or accurate then? Using digital zoom as an analogy doesn't really make sense either unless you're talking at the level the commentor above mentioned where the wavelength is the smallest scale. Taking a digital photograph and zooming in looks like shit because there is no more information there. You're looking at a representation of a sample of light taken by a sensor; usually a square that is not accurate measurement of the actual light as it would be observed, but an 'average' if you will that is assigned to the closest match available. From what you and the video poster are saying it is something different.
In the first minute you show some Müller brand microscopes. Please note that "Müller Optronic" or "Müller Germany" is not a German optics manufacturer. "Made in Germany" is a protected attribute, "Germany" is not. Müller is one of the most common surnames in Germany. In the recent years a couple of Chinese companies have started brands with German names.
@Jakob Jones China is fully capable of making high quality, high precision goods. They seem to be obsessed with flooding the market with 2nd and 3rd rate (or worse) junk because people are obsessed with buying it. If the average consumer was more demanding, a lot of this junk would disappear.
I agree the most part but i don`t think more than 100x is a waste. I have a 1976 microscope with 4 10 40 and 100oil and oculars ranging from 5 to 15. And to do the jump from the 10 to the 40x objective i put the 15x ocular with the 10x objective first so as an in between magnificaiton and it doesn`t loose any detail. What i mean is that the 10x objective for example has enought detail to magnify it`s image like 25 times with the ocular without loosing resolution (at least not perceptible)
When I was in 7th grade, my science class had some group projects and we got points off on ours for not listing a 1500x or whatever under a picture we had on our poster board. Thing is, it was blown up from an image in a book and the teacher wanted the book's magnification level on our blown up image. If you think about it, a magnification factor really only applies to the virtual image at the ocular lens. Your eye or camera will be receiving an image that's about half an inch or a centimeter wide. Take a picture and put it in a book or on a poster board and that factor no longer applies. The photography and printing affect the scaling of the image and therefore "magnification factor". Blew my mind that as a 12 or 13 year old kid I had to explain it and was still told I was wrong.
You can make a microscope image larger by printing or displaying it on a big screen. But that does not increase the resolution - the amount of detail you can see.
You took the first 4 minutes to convey a short sentence worth of information. I had to check the timeline because I thought I restarted the video by accident somehow.
watched the whole video and i still dont know why, the only example given was blurry due to resolution which does not apply when doing optical magnification...i have no doubt that magnification numbers over certain point start to be pointless and higher end microscope with less magnification will be better than cheap chinese microscope with high magnification, but why....beats me and i dont think this guy understand why either, hes the user, he knows its there but he cant explain it
@@ZomgPL I wish he'd do the whole thing again but to the point. All I could gather was that he was really just stating the obvious and that is a clear distinct photo/video was better than a blurry one and the best way to do that was to concentrate on getting good resolution and depth of field and not so much on the power of the microscope.
@@MrStringybark i suspect it has something to do with focus and how good of a quality the lenses are, as in without defects, i dont really get why he even talks about resolution in optical zoom...
Visible light has a wavelength of about 400-700 nanometer, or 0.0004-0.0007 mm. This is the very smallest objects visible with normal light and optics, meaning that some object of that size simply cannot appear as more than just a very blurry dot. Around 0.5 mm (at 1000X) is ample size for viewing a blurry dot, it does not at all become more clear by being a 1.5 mm (at 3000X) blurry dot without any more detail.
No, you obviously need magnification and resolving power as well. But, yes, beginners are attracted by magnification. A single piece of perfect glass with no magnification so no lensing has maximum resolving power DEPENDING ON THE SOURCE OF WAVES, light or electrons so all details are preserved but you can't really see much of the details without using lenses Once you introduce lenses the image is distorted. The better lenses you have the better the resolving power For high magnification the resolving power becomes more important. Apochromatic lenses have less chromatic and spherical aberration and thus better resolving power. But even in low magnification they offer a sharper image. For example if you have a camera and a good objective lens you can digitally zoom and get more details than with lower quality lenses. Better quality lens are more expensive not higher magnification as explained in this video. Having the best possible lens is still not enough for magnifications over 1000x because the resolving power is limited by the wavelength of light. The higher the frequency / lower the wavelength the better resolving power. That is why electron scan microscopes are by far superior because electrons have much lower deBroglie wavelength.
From a certain magnification onwards (about 1000x), you will simply see everything more blurry but not more details. The spot that you see will only appear larger but small details will not appear. You will not gain more information from a certain magnification onwards.
@@Microbehunter Yeah dude you said that like 12x in the video but never explained why. Honestly this video could have been about 30 sec long and conveyed the same amount of information.
@@Microbehunter That is simply not true. Light microscopy can resolve objects 0.2 micrometers across, a magnification of only 1000x would make that appear only 0.2mm across. That is not enough to make them easily visible, even though they can be resolved. 10,000x magnification is thus completely justifiable on a sufficiently high quality light microscope.
magnification is limited by the wavelength of light - you can’t see things that are only a tiny fraction of a wavelength in size. The most you can ever hope to get out of a light microscope is about 1500x, which will let you see objects as small as 200 nanometers in size.
@@punkisinthedetails1470 he zoomed in on the 4x pic to get the same 'magnification' but he doesnt seem to explain why the 40x is more clear other than the normal viewer knowing about optical vs digital zoom
The maximum useful magnification that can be achieved by an optical microscope typically ranges from 500x to 1500x. Higher magnification is possible, but increasing magnification past a certain point results a decrease in resolution. While both the ocular and objective lenses are responsible for the final magnification on a compound microscope only the objective lens is responsible for resolution. You need to take into account the *numerical* *aperture* of the objective lens. Numerical aperture can be defined as being equal to the refractive index of substance between the specimen and the objective multiplied by sin Mu Mu being 1/2 the *aperture* *angle*. (sorry Mu should be the lower case Greek letter, TH-cam comments do not seem to allow Greek letters) The aperture angle is the angle described by the cone of light that enters the objective lens after passing through the specimen. This will depend on the curvature of the lens and also on how close the objective lens is to the specimen when it is in focus. There is more about microscope magnification and resolution on the Nikon site. www.microscopyu.com/microscopy-basics/useful-magnification-range
Love how the brand is carefully blurred, but the "sold by" area is crystal clear! Lol I mean, we all knew which ones were get thrown under the bus, but still... But you're right, marketing is getting out of hand. The great scientists of history would KILL to get their hands on a cheap kids microscope nowadays, much less an Olympus!
Thank you! As a Med-Bio student it is releaving seeing and understanding the specificity and the point of your advices. I am both glad and gratefull to you, for this clip. The only true microscope propper buying advice. Thanks to you, today i gained a few more criteria when considering purchasing my new ''toy''. :)
It's called marketing. Remember the bit wars of the 90's? The Super Nintendo and Genesis were 16-bit. The 3DO was 32-bit. Atari released the Jaguar which was 64-bit. They even said this in their ads. Their slogan was "Do the Math". The Atari Jaguar failed miserably and now it holds dental equipment.
You want 3000x with good resolution, use a STEM. Visible light just hasn't got a small enough wavelength to resove fine details. I wonder though why they don't use EM waves of a shorter wavelength like UV with a photodetector that can actually "see" these wavelengths. Though something tells me they do.
I looked into it and yeah, UV microscopy is a thing. As is microscopy utilizing soft x-rays in the same manner. But apparently you can tune electrons to almost any wavelength. So that's why STEMs are more common.
Electronics uses both X-Ray and Electron microscopes. When you are trying to resolve things with a size heading for 1/10,000 the wavelength of visible light it starts getting a mite hairy. EG fault "blips" on the line widths of .07nm lithography.
Great video. I hadn't even thought about this, although the last microscope I used was an electron microscope so my expectation of what an optical microscope would be able to achieve had been slightly distorted! It's the same as this with telescopes also, even things like planets look much better at lower magnification.
Thank you very much for your video, it is really very helpful for someone who is starting in the hobby as me. But I didn’t understood how can I determine the useful amplification for a set of lens. How can I choose between different lenses? Is there some kind of specification that determines their quality, or “sharpness” in certain amplifications?
Yes, there is a number (the numerical aperture or NA) printed on the lens, and the higher the number, the better the theoretical resolution. Higher magnifying objectives have a higher NA. BUT: this is only theoretical. There are many other factors that determine lens quality and there is no way that you can see this from the outside. However, for all practical purposes this does not matter in most cases and often you are not given a choice anyway when buying a microscope. Apochromatic objectives are better, but almost not affordable and you only get the image quality if your specimen is prepared properly etc. Watch the video "Microscope comparison - From very expensive to super cheap" to see a side by side image comparison.
I calibrate and repair lots of different microscopes, but I will think twice before I agree to rebuild another Olympus CX41 Phase Contrast unit. If you thought calibrating them at setup was stressful and tedious, rebuilding one under a homemade positive pressure hepa hood is a nightmare. Gods bless bearing retention fluid!
Interesting and useful, but there's no need for this video to be almost 10 minutes. There's too much repetition, I would cut it down to 5 minutes or less.
Tarik Essamri yeah but if you know anything, you’d know the 10-min mark gives a big difference in revenue on this website, which he didn’t hit, which invalidates your stupid talk
. Hi Microbehunter, I have just discovered your channel through this video, and I have to say I am very impressed, this exactly what I have been waiting for. This channel should be a first port of call for any student or amateur (like myself), I have just subscribed and I cant wait to see your next video. Thank you, Anthony Mataabro. .
Its also almost exactly the same situation with astronomical telescopes. Low end companies advertise small often low quality telescopes with 1000X , when in fact these instruments are only capable of 120X ,maximum, even then when sky conditions are perfect.Astronomers suffer the added handicap of atmospheric turbulence so even the best and largest amateur instruments are restricted to about 400X most of the time anyway.Like microscopes the main criteria is resolution and brightness of the image at the eyepiece that counts.
It is true. However, it is going to provide no further _resolution_ over one with 600x magnification. That is a function of the illuminating wavelength, and for visible light that pretty much caps it at around 300ish nm or so. No feature smaller than that will you have any chance of seeing. The only way to change this is to change what you're illuminating with, and that requires a completely different and often dramatically more expensive microscope, e.g. electron microscopes.
As an amateur (actually not even that) thinking of getting some sort of magnifying device to examine the edges of knives, I found this video very enlightening. Thankfully to date I have only wasted a few bucks on cheapo digitals off Ebay. Thanks for posting.
But why haven't you listed these OTHER criteria for buying? What is the really important parameter to look for if we should ignore the magnification figures? How do you state a resolution of the microscope, for example? Is the focal length an important parameter?
Looking at examples of specimens through the 'scope is the best way to evaluate. NA (numeric aperture) is nice to know, etc. But you might have a 'scope that looks good on paper, but has chromatic aberrations, or weird-but-subtle internal reflections, or focus shift with change in magnification,...
The poster doesn't seem to have a firm grasp about the subject. The resolution of all light microscopes is exactly the same, however lens defects lower the effective resolution, therefore the best microscope is the one with the best made lenses, unfortunately there is no real metric for this. The best you could hope for is for a company to state the size of the smallest object that microscope/lenses can resolve.
This is why I like the advertising for electronics microscopes. Not only do they give you the magnification range they have pictures of extremely well known size items to show how well you can see them. EG an 01005 resistor (0.01 inch by 0.005 inch) is not something normally solderable by hand. You then get a picture at the different magnification levels to show how clear not only the resistor is but the "fillet" of the solder joints. Needless to say it's a completely different ball game as typically magnification is between 1.5. and 40x. Also instead of eyepieces their is a shrouded viewport you look down so the glass is actually up to 5 inches on the diagonal.
Insisting that a microscope's purpose is not to magnify is one of the stupidest things I've heard in my life. I can see he's trying to make certain points about the qualities of microscopes but he is going about it in the worst possible way.
tx for the explenation. So, what is the difference between low end and high end microscope if everything share the same features? is it only the quality of the device?
In short: A. mechanics (manufacturing quality). B. modularity (exchangability of parts) C. accessories (brand microscopes have many accessories because they also manufacture for medicine, research etc.) D. reliability. But I would say that most mid-range microscopes are really fine, especially for amateur and educational use. Some high end devices allow for additional features that are not necessary for amateur and educational use (fluorescent microscopy, DIC, phase contrast, specialized polarization microscopes etc). I made another video, where I compare low and high end microscopes.
Just found your channel! Really cool. When I was smaller I used to want to be a microbiologist but now that I’m 13 I want to be a pilot, but still love microbiology
Thanks for the infos, now if i were to look for a microscope what would be the specification I would need to recognize in order to have a good structure resolution of what Im magnifying ?
Reminds me of when digital cameras. Especially in the early days but I guess it still happens where people just want more megapixels. But glass isnt good enough to resolve the resolution. My phone has over a 100 megapixel camera. But I guarantee a professional level 12 Megapixel camera will resolve an image better.
hi calvinhikes have you become a flat earther yet? If not I suggest watch a 13 part series called _What on earth happened_ by Ewaranon to learn that the earth is not a globe. I got it in my about tab.
Hello. Let me start by saying I have really been enjoying your videos. Learning so much and I'm very inspired as I have picked up this new hobby. I wish I had seen this video before I bought my microscope. It is a most excellent microscope and every day has been a day of new wonders. That being said I could have saved some money by getting a 1000 rather than a 2500. I've already discovered that not only is it overkill but it is impossible to work with, with anything that isn't absolutely stationary. I wanted to be able to see viruses and Chromosomes and such and now I'm finding that I didn't need that high a magnification. Well, I learned the hard way but, no regrets. I still have an excellent high quality microscope because I didn't buy on magnification alone. I'm also am an astronomy enthusiast, so I've learned allot about the need for image resolution over magnification. Thing is with astronomy you can't observe anything on cloudy nights so I thought I needed something equally as interesting and so that's were I am today. I also wanted to tell you that when I found your videos I was captivated right away. Many other people make very technical videos that have no personality. Your videos are very engaging and have given m, in a very short time much joy in learning about everything I can see and do with my new passion. Thank you so much for what you do.
I like how maybe a month ago I accidentally happened to watch that one random microscopy video of some bacteria or whatever. Since then TH-cam has recommended me more and more such videos. Now I'm watching this and thinking maybe I should get a microscope.
I can not recommend anything particular, because the choice is so large and so much depends on individual needs and preferences. There is a saying: "The best microscope is the one that is used most often."
I was missing the explanation too. The explanation you added to the text is great! I think it is not possible to explain it that good in the video anyway, so now it's way better than it could have been originally.
@jclouds22 I'm not saying they're crap. At 300x they're perfectly sharp. Just around 350x and above they get very blurry. Also they are stereoscopic and you can't really perceive depth at anything above 200/250x We use them to inspect microchips so they don't really need to go that high but still.
you don't talk about why those higher powers don't work. your example doesn't work either. by zooming after the fact you are reducing the resolution because there are fewer sensors being hit by the same area of sample. with your eye it's going to still be projected across the whole surface. I remember doing oil immersion in high school, so i'm guessing we're dealing with a refractive index issue at this level of magnification or are we also coming close to the resolution limit of light at those powers?
DR. Phil : " Let's put your problems under a microscope and see if we can resolve these issues. We don't wanna make 'em any bigger Lord No! they're magnified enough. I want to resolve. "
Not if you know the physics. IE for blue light the "resolution" has a theoretical limit of 0.0004mm for red it's worse. So magnifying anything up that is smaller than that looks very like and acts very like digital zoom.
@@gordonlawrence4749 whilst that is true, 1000x magnification still leaves those objects at around 1mm in size. Still small enough that further magnification is easily justifiable.
@@gordonlawrence4749 Can't you "super sample" it if its at low resolution - like displace the image by fractions of your maximum resolution and reconstruct a higher resolution image ?
Awesome video. I am late to the microscope-party, (just getting started), but this video helps me out big time. It is on point, it has loads of valuable info and is very good to follow for everyone. Love it! Thanks for sharing. Gonna dive right into your other videos. 🍻
thank you, you are still helping out people that's only ever used the cheap 200 and 300 power scopes i need to see blood cells i like you said was just hunting down the highest i could find money aside you saved me a learning curve so to speak. subscribed and will check out your view on things.
- A 1 mm² size object or area (1 mm x 1 mm) times 1000x will be like 1000 mm² or around 3.1cm x 3.1cm in area size. For example a tardigrade. - The biggest virus is Megavirus with 440nm diameter, so the area is 607904 nm² or 6.07904e-7 mm² magnified by 1000 then 6.07904e-4 = 0,000607904 mm². It's still too small for a microscope to see a virus then. If even 3000x magnification doesn't make sense, then how do people see a virus ?
I just googled it and turns out this kind of microscopy is called light microscopy (max around 1500x) while for viewing virus will need electron microscopy (can be 1 or 2 or 10 million times). Funny thing is, tardigrade looks transparent under light microscope but looks solid under an electron microscope which can only see through skin in nm thickness while tardigrade is in the mm size, so that's why there are various images of tardigrade lol, transparent and solid view.
@@Mickimoss You don't really "see" things under an electron microscope. Usually they use the word "visualize." Much below the wavelength of visible light, objects have no appearance. An electron microscope detects a pattern, which is then converted into a visual image for our sensory convenience.
In the same line as mega-pixels for DSLR, PMPO for speakers, Gigahertz for processors, marks and raking for students. Marketing people love to oversimplify performance to just one number to woo you into buying stuff.
The manufacturers are referring to the size as viewed on a video monitor. I use a 2000x scope to view very small rotary engraving bits which have a tip width of 0.1mm ...... on the monitor, they do indeed appear to be 200mm wide ......... a magnification of 2000 times. I do not use the scope to resolve things or make things appear. I use it measure the tip width and other aspect of the engraving bits.
Great vid. One note. Just because a microscope is advertised on Amazon as "40x to 2500x" does NOT automatically mean it's a bad scope. It can be a good scope just trying to keep up with the first-time buyer market, even with people willing to shell out good money for a quality scope. That ten-page glossy pamphlet is intended at buyers for hospitals and universities. To sell the same 'scope on Amazon, they may need to throw in a single 25X eyepiece to be able to do that. My good STEREO scope came with a single 25X so it could say "40x to 2500x" on Amazon.
If you want an easy example go to a large sporting goods store like Bass Pro shop or Cabelas, (when they aren't busy) find the binoculars and ask to compare 8x with 10x(12x if the have them) and compare in low cost, med cost, and top grade. Be sure you compare similar size objectives too, as this alters the brightness. Usually they have a distant target on the other side of the store just for this testing. The summary is that 12x requires extremely steady hands, 8x is very forgiving, you get more detail from an expensive 8x than you can get from a low price 12x(even with a stand to stop hand shake). The lower cost, especially in smaller objectives, tend to cause eye strain because the image is dim and not sharp.(a subtle diffusion that can't be removed by focusing, possible color fringing in the very cheap models)
No. You're confusing magnification with zoom. They advertise high magnification, because that's exactly what they do. Thanks for wasting 9 minutes of my time.
Magnification is the same thing as zoom. A zoom lens in photography magnifies the image when you turn the focal length from the smaller number to the larger number.
Resolution and resolving power depending on wave length of the light used. Electron microscope uses electrons instead of light waves for very high resolution, but cannot be viewed by naked eye directly. Magnification is required too, but its nothing if resolving power is low. Both should go hand in hand.
The diffraction limit of light means the highest useful magnification with a light microscope that wont be super blurry is 1500x give or take. I've gotten 1600x with a little blurry res but resolution increasing techniques like polarization can increase its resolution
Man, this is a blast from the past for me, having studied in biomolecular science, using microscopes was definitely a thing. And though we didn't technically really focus on magnification X, what we did focus on was the limits of light and how it applies to samples. I think people would understand things better if you'd go into more details on that and why it's such a limiting factor. You know, how the wavelength of light impacts an object you're trying to magnify and generally, there's few tricks to really get around that.
As a total beginner who's an expert in unrelated fields; my expectation was to be able to see microscopic life, and be able to turn something on the microscope and see more details. I bought an Amscope b120c with max 100 oil objective and 25x eyepiece for 2500x magnification thinking if it can do that, it must already have the hardware for resolution. I found myself having to buy a 60x dry objective and 20x eyepiece which seems to be the right compromise for good enough resolution and magnification combo
I think you are right but i would say consider the situation because i have been in situations where amazon for example was more willing to discount the ones above 100x and that actually meant i could get a better microscope not in magnification but in quality of other things instead
Your point is perfectly valid, but you should explain the reason. This phenomenon was first described by Abbe in his diffraction limit. Short explanation without math: Light consists of waves and you can totally forget seeing anything smaller than the wave length of light in a normal microscope. The wave lengths of visible light are 750-380nm, so seeing stuff like the transistors of a CPU (14nm) is completely out of the question. But the wave length is only the limit when your microscope is perfect. The second most important factor is having a large lens very close to the object to collect all angles of scattered light from the object. This can be done by using an immersion oil and sticking the lens directly onto the object. The further you go away, the smaller your lens is, the less angles you collect and your resolution suffers. At last, all of this assumes that your lenses are perfect aberration-free glass. For scientific instrumentation these days this can be safely assumened, for amateure equipment maybe not. And now you can perhaps understand we scientists (like me) use x-rays and electrons for microscopy. The wavelengths are much smaller (sub-atomic in some cases) so that we can overcome the limitation of optical microscopy. But the prices for these instruments start where the prices for high-end optical microscopes end ... we are talking several 100k up to some millions.
When my current girlfriend came to my home the first time 8 years ago she saw my microscope which my dad gave me when I was 13. She had never used a microscope before and explaining some of the details was harder than expected, but I did manage to beam the image across the whole wall of my room with magnification probably far beyond 3000 so she could easily see what I saw and I could use my finger to explain what is what in the image which was really cool. So while magnification might not be the most important thing in microscopes, more magnification can always be useful.
From the theory of microscopes ... The optimal magnification of the microscope is 500-1000 N.A. the lens. If less than 500 N. A., then the quality of resolution is higher than the eye can. If more than 1000 N.A., the eye will see a larger picture, but not in more detail. Example. Lens 40x N.A. 0.65. optimal magnification 325-650 times. For optimal magnification, choose an eyepiece from 8x to 16x, with an increase in tube x1. If the increase in the tube is more than 1, then when choosing eyepieces, the increase in eyepieces must be reduced proportionally. When choosing a microscope, one should look at the complete lenses (their magnification and N.A.), type of correction (I will list achromatic, planachromatic, apochromatic, plan-apochromatic in order of improvement), equipment with additional accessories (dark-field condenser, phase-contrast device, etc.)
Excellent! I wish you would have explained the physics of WHY the magnification is literally impossible (with visible light) at the stupid high values. I contacted three of the most popular microscope companies asking for photos of images made at magnifications above 1000 with their microscopes. None provided photos, only excuses!
The key "issue" imo is that unlike a telescope, which we think of as a microscopes opposite, where you can just use arbitrarily larger & larger sized Lens, when you attempt to resolve the tiny(not distant), the wavelengths of visible light is only small enough to resolve things of a similar size or greater. At least that's what sets the "limit" in principle. How close you can get to that is another matter. I'm no specialist of optics or microscopy but off hand I'd say, probably a typical 1000-1200X is plenty(for general purpose). & I'm not at all familiar with actual techniques in use, but perhaps using blue and/or even UV with capable CCD/external imaging, then a few K(that 2 or 3) might be desirable I'm not sure, maybe even otherwise in some cases. Main point 1000X VS.1500X VS. 2 or 3000X probable not typically all that significant. Especially considering that, if like the vid said, 1000X is where oil comes in. Not that such things are a big deal if you're really into it or do it professionally, but I'd take a 500X with quality lenses over a cheap-o e-bay plastic lens toy from china(no offense) of ANY "magnification".
You can actually achieve magnifications with a light microscope to 8,000 X but that requires not only thinking out of the box but thinking like a mad scientist. It requires inverting the laws of optical physics and combining lens zoom systems not associated with microscopes. In my scientific imaging hobby I use 16mm projection lenses, anastigmatic torque versions, etc. To achieve super magnification you must for example be able to take a 4X microscope objective (plan achromat or higher quality) produce a clear magnification of 1,000X. The problem with trying to get a clear resolution with a light microscope at 3,000 times is that you cannot use either a 40x or 100X objective. A 10X is the one you want to use with a 125x optical zoom so you don't destroy your depth of field entirely.It must be an apochromat objective so that the 125X zoom does not pull out abberations in the objective and the digital camera must be 100 megapixels or medium format film. Think out the box if you expect to achieve the impossible. The maximum magnification using this method with a 65" UHTV is 30,000X! Finally just in case you think I pulling your leg consider what Richard Ernest (Laboratory Director, Alliance Forensics Laboratory, Forth Worth, TX) wrote to me after viewing some of my work asked me how I was able to do it. I told him it was a trade secret to which he replied: "Thank you for your reply, albeit disappointing. Apparently there are no easy ways to obtain the results you have been able to obtain. In essence, by hook or crook, you have been able to get around the laws of the physical universe. My hat is off to you" It wasn't by hook or crook--it was hundreds of hours of experimentation with lens systems,digital cameras, camcorders etc.
For people who have trouble understanding the reason behind why magnification doesn't matter: if you really want to know why you would need to take a microscopy course. Yes, an university level course. I have taken courses on electron microscopes, and have a lot of experience operating both optical and electron microscopes. There is quite a bit of physics involved. You just have to remember that all the details you are able to resolve from an optical microscope come from the objective lens, and ONLY the objective lens. Resolving power matters more than magnification. The resolving power of your microscope is limited by the wavelength of light. The shorter the wavelength, the more details you are able to resolve. Electron microscopes can show details so much better under very high magnification than optical microscopes because the wavelengths of electrons are orders of magnitude shorter than visible light wavelengths. Typically in air, the limit of the objective lens you can use is a 100x objective, and it is very close to the limit of resolving power you can achieve in air. If you need a higher resolution from an optical microscope, you should consider oil immersion lenses. The higher refractive index of the oil allows for higher resolution.
So basically it’s like the misconception with zoom on cameras, where people think 2x means it’s like standing half as far away from the subject, but all it really means is the image will look twice as big. You don’t get the increase in detail like you would from physically moving closer.
i did not watch this before i got a swift 380t and i can not see very clearly at like 400x i am not sure or more with oil so thank you i now know that it cant go further in with it i thought that i could go as far as it said
This is great. Everyone should watch this video before purchasing their first microscope.
That is exactly what I'm doing right now Haha
Olav Viking no, it’s a scam. All they’re doing is changing the eye piece lenses to achieve higher magnification without taking the rest into account. Hence, why it looks like shit at 3000x
@@kevinarzola4781 You've done no industrial microbiology. Do some, get back to us.
@Bleep Bloop Industry uses enlargement all the time. You know, the companies that pay for these things?
BeeRich33 lmao what I said is literally proven. It’s scientific fact. The man even holds your hand to explain it
This same scam applies to telescopes. In reality, the maximum usable magnification of a telescope is just a little bit more than the diameter of the objective lens or mirror in millimeters. A 200 mm primary mirror maxes out at about 240X. Yet manufacturers will claim magnification of 1000X or more for scopes with 50 or 60mm objectives.
Yes, and the purpose of telescopes is also to capture light, to make faint stars (etc) visible, and not only to magnify. I used to be (still am a bit) into amateur astronomy as well and when I bought a telescope years ago, this issue about unrealistic magnification was already covered in magazines. I guess consumers want to have a simple way of comparing the quality, and magnification seems to be the most easily understood one, even though it's not the best measure.
I spend a lot of time photographing stars and you are right. There is a huge difference between magnification and what can actually be resolved. Additionally, those high-end magnifications you need very solid (read heavy) tripods and the ability to track stars as they move.
On top of that the higher magnification you go, the smaller the exit pupil. So not only is the image getting blurrier as you go higher, but it's getting dimmer as well! That's why larger aperture telescopes show so much more detail. You're can hit higher magnifications with a larger exit pupil.
Exit pupil is the size of the image that gets reflected from the telescope. Basically what gets projected onto your eye through the eyepiece. If you have a pupil that's 7mm fully dilated, and an exit pupil that's only 0.5mm, you're wasting 6.5mm of light gathering from your eye. (At least that's what I remember it being back when I was super into this stuff, if I'm wrong someone correct me.)
@@JesusistheWaytheTruth288 Dilated pupils......So that's why people do astronomy in the dark. :)
@@AverageJoe8686 Thanks. I do actually spend a lot of time photographing stars. And you are right, slightly off-center is helpful though it feels strange at first. To me, the Andromeda Galaxy is just a faint blur when not looking directly. If I look straight at it, then I see nothing.
You saved me from doing a stupid purchase. You explained my worries and questions so well. Thanks a lot for letting us know this valuable info!
I know from watching CSI, you just have to say "Enhance" it you see more.
the zoom in got me lmao
"Snap!"
I was wondering what you were talking about
Then it happened.
Randomly at exactly 4:37am I have found out I want this to be another hobby of mine and realized I should look up things to have a better understanding. I’m glad I did bc all I was focused on was the magnification. I’m glad I found this video. Thank you. You saved me a lot of money from people likely praying on beginners like myself.
Scanning electron microscope:
"Hold my beer."
Helium ion microscope:
"Hold my cognac."
@@FinnMcRiangabra iPhone macro lens:
"hold my soy milk shake"
Eyes:
"hold my eyelids"
STM: "Hold my electron.. ah shit they tunneled through may hands"
@Crimsonfireball, Eyes: "hold my dirty glasses"
I actually love your intro... It feels nostalgic. Like I'm back in grade school getting ready to watch something the substitute found in the library
Well yeah, it's just like optical vs digital zoom. The microscope companies should advertise in terms of resolution, otherwise it's just misleading.
It's not quite as simple as that. Using visible light it's not possible to resolve anything meaningful below a certain size as even blue light has a wavelength of about 0.0000004 meters (0.0004mm). All you would get magnifying something that small up is a blob regardless of lens quality.
@ateb3 I'm under the impression that it is down to lens quality and alignment. I do not know for sure though.
The guy is correct, and accurate.
But he NEVER ACTUALLY GETS AROUND to explaining why.
I.E. good scientist, shyte teacher.
The explanation *why* is mathematical. I will do a video on that.
@@Microbehunter Looking forward to it! Subbed.
Visible light or optical microscopes can't resolve details smaller than 1 wavelength. From violet to red, that wavelength ranges from 200nm to 700nm. Since blue light has shorter wavelengths, it would be possible to see clearer details in filtered blue light than red. Why is 1 wavelength the limit? The reason is that light is a wave so it diffracts or bends at the scale of 1 wavelength. Why do the images made by interfering electromagnetic waves get blurred by 1 wavelength? This reasoning is getting deep enough that it is hard to explain.
Anyway, you can still resolve finer detail with a microscope. Resolving finer details just requires a jump to a completely different type of microscope such as an electron microscope or x-ray microscope. If websites selling electron microscopes listed their maximum powers, that would be really funny since I doubt the typical electron microscope shopper would be swayed by those numbers.
@@iarrcsim2323 All perfectly true, and all *irrelevant* to the practical limit of visual microscopy limitations.
The limits imposed by wavelength limits are *several* magnitudes smaller than the limits imposed by practical objective diameters.
How is it correct or accurate then? Using digital zoom as an analogy doesn't really make sense either unless you're talking at the level the commentor above mentioned where the wavelength is the smallest scale.
Taking a digital photograph and zooming in looks like shit because there is no more information there. You're looking at a representation of a sample of light taken by a sensor; usually a square that is not accurate measurement of the actual light as it would be observed, but an 'average' if you will that is assigned to the closest match available.
From what you and the video poster are saying it is something different.
Translation, you won't get good focus at high magnification.
It's not about focus, it is as he says about resolution.
Ok
In the first minute you show some Müller brand microscopes.
Please note that "Müller Optronic" or "Müller Germany" is not a German optics manufacturer.
"Made in Germany" is a protected attribute, "Germany" is not.
Müller is one of the most common surnames in Germany. In the recent years a couple of Chinese companies have started brands with German names.
Yes,a couple of years ago, someone in China manufactured sport shoes branded as Uncle Armor
@@aliszhinchaenz That reminds me of a set of "Pieonear" headphones.
@@MetalheadAndNerd lol
Not as good as Acliclas.
@Jakob Jones China is fully capable of making high quality, high precision goods. They seem to be obsessed with flooding the market with 2nd and 3rd rate (or worse) junk because people are obsessed with buying it. If the average consumer was more demanding, a lot of this junk would disappear.
I agree the most part but i don`t think more than 100x is a waste. I have a 1976 microscope with 4 10 40 and 100oil and oculars ranging from 5 to 15. And to do the jump from the 10 to the 40x objective i put the 15x ocular with the 10x objective first so as an in between magnificaiton and it doesn`t loose any detail. What i mean is that the 10x objective for example has enought detail to magnify it`s image like 25 times with the ocular without loosing resolution (at least not perceptible)
Okay, I get it. Then what specs should one be looking at? You said 'use other criteria' but it will help to actually spell them out.
When I was in 7th grade, my science class had some group projects and we got points off on ours for not listing a 1500x or whatever under a picture we had on our poster board. Thing is, it was blown up from an image in a book and the teacher wanted the book's magnification level on our blown up image. If you think about it, a magnification factor really only applies to the virtual image at the ocular lens. Your eye or camera will be receiving an image that's about half an inch or a centimeter wide. Take a picture and put it in a book or on a poster board and that factor no longer applies. The photography and printing affect the scaling of the image and therefore "magnification factor". Blew my mind that as a 12 or 13 year old kid I had to explain it and was still told I was wrong.
You can make a microscope image larger by printing or displaying it on a big screen. But that does not increase the resolution - the amount of detail you can see.
You took the first 4 minutes to convey a short sentence worth of information. I had to check the timeline because I thought I restarted the video by accident somehow.
4:49 is when the video starts
All his videos need a time stamp when it starts, he talks soooo much
As in "Here's where there's one picture of what he's talking about, who cares the reason I just ant pretty pictures"?
Yeah, very informative.
Now that is a jumpscare
don't know how I end up here, but I'm not complaining.
Really liked this. Almost everything you mention also applies to astronomy as well. Insane magnification leads to no or horrible imaging.
Stop beating around the bush and explain why. I'm halfway through the video and it's beginning to sound like a shaggy-dog joke story.
watched the whole video and i still dont know why, the only example given was blurry due to resolution which does not apply when doing optical magnification...i have no doubt that magnification numbers over certain point start to be pointless and higher end microscope with less magnification will be better than cheap chinese microscope with high magnification, but why....beats me and i dont think this guy understand why either, hes the user, he knows its there but he cant explain it
@@ZomgPL I wish he'd do the whole thing again but to the point. All I could gather was that he was really just stating the obvious and that is a clear distinct photo/video was better than a blurry one and the best way to do that was to concentrate on getting good resolution and depth of field and not so much on the power of the microscope.
@@MrStringybark i suspect it has something to do with focus and how good of a quality the lenses are, as in without defects, i dont really get why he even talks about resolution in optical zoom...
@ZomgPL
There is something called diffraction limit. Basically you can't distinct details smaller than the wavelength of the light you are using.
Visible light has a wavelength of about 400-700 nanometer, or 0.0004-0.0007 mm. This is the very smallest objects visible with normal light and optics, meaning that some object of that size simply cannot appear as more than just a very blurry dot. Around 0.5 mm (at 1000X) is ample size for viewing a blurry dot, it does not at all become more clear by being a 1.5 mm (at 3000X) blurry dot without any more detail.
No, you obviously need magnification and resolving power as well. But, yes, beginners are attracted by magnification. A single piece of perfect glass with no magnification so no lensing has maximum resolving power DEPENDING ON THE SOURCE OF WAVES, light or electrons so all details are preserved but you can't really see much of the details without using lenses
Once you introduce lenses the image is distorted. The better lenses you have the better the resolving power
For high magnification the resolving power becomes more important. Apochromatic lenses have less chromatic and spherical aberration and thus better resolving power. But even in low magnification they offer a sharper image. For example if you have a camera and a good objective lens you can digitally zoom and get more details than with lower quality lenses.
Better quality lens are more expensive not higher magnification as explained in this video.
Having the best possible lens is still not enough for magnifications over 1000x because the resolving power is limited by the wavelength of light. The higher the frequency / lower the wavelength the better resolving power. That is why electron scan microscopes are by far superior because electrons have much lower deBroglie wavelength.
If only the video had included any of this information...
U mean...not enough light to see through 3000x?
Very convoluted explanation. And too many repetitions. You can do better.
@White Rice pls tell me why some microscopes with high magnification are no better than ones with lower magnification
From a certain magnification onwards (about 1000x), you will simply see everything more blurry but not more details. The spot that you see will only appear larger but small details will not appear. You will not gain more information from a certain magnification onwards.
@@Microbehunter Yeah dude you said that like 12x in the video but never explained why. Honestly this video could have been about 30 sec long and conveyed the same amount of information.
@@Microbehunter That is simply not true. Light microscopy can resolve objects 0.2 micrometers across, a magnification of only 1000x would make that appear only 0.2mm across. That is not enough to make them easily visible, even though they can be resolved. 10,000x magnification is thus completely justifiable on a sufficiently high quality light microscope.
You really didn't have to keep repeating the difference between magnification and resolution endlessly. I got it the first time.
Thanks for clarifying this! This always confused me how they got so high magnification.
10 minutes of rambling, and you can't bother to explain WHY? This video is about 8 minutes too long for what was actually said.
magnification is limited by the wavelength of light - you can’t see things that are only a tiny fraction of a wavelength in size. The most you can ever hope to get out of a light microscope is about 1500x, which will let you see objects as small as 200 nanometers in size.
Also the blurry pic is 4x and none blurry is 40x so why did he say they were the same?
@@punkisinthedetails1470 he zoomed in on the 4x pic to get the same 'magnification' but he doesnt seem to explain why the 40x is more clear other than the normal viewer knowing about optical vs digital zoom
@Bleep Bloop well thats the only difference that is shown in the video about why maginification doesnt matter
The maximum useful magnification that can be achieved by an optical microscope typically ranges from 500x to 1500x. Higher magnification is possible, but increasing magnification past a certain point results a decrease in resolution.
While both the ocular and objective lenses are responsible for the final magnification on a compound microscope only the objective lens is responsible for resolution.
You need to take into account the *numerical* *aperture* of the objective lens.
Numerical aperture can be defined as being equal to the refractive index of substance between the specimen and the objective multiplied by sin Mu
Mu being 1/2 the *aperture* *angle*.
(sorry Mu should be the lower case Greek letter, TH-cam comments do not seem to allow Greek letters)
The aperture angle is the angle described by the cone of light that enters the objective lens after passing through the specimen. This will depend on the curvature of the lens and also on how close the objective lens is to the specimen when it is in focus.
There is more about microscope magnification and resolution on the Nikon site.
www.microscopyu.com/microscopy-basics/useful-magnification-range
I didn’t know this but I’m surprised because all microscopes are literally advertised as 2000 or 2500
Hahahahahahaahah when he zoomed into his mouth 😂😂😂😂
Love how the brand is carefully blurred, but the "sold by" area is crystal clear! Lol
I mean, we all knew which ones were get thrown under the bus, but still...
But you're right, marketing is getting out of hand. The great scientists of history would KILL to get their hands on a cheap kids microscope nowadays, much less an Olympus!
Thank you! As a Med-Bio student it is releaving seeing and understanding the specificity and the point of your advices. I am both glad and gratefull to you, for this clip. The only true microscope propper buying advice. Thanks to you, today i gained a few more criteria when considering purchasing my new ''toy''. :)
It's called marketing. Remember the bit wars of the 90's? The Super Nintendo and Genesis were 16-bit. The 3DO was 32-bit. Atari released the Jaguar which was 64-bit. They even said this in their ads. Their slogan was "Do the Math". The Atari Jaguar failed miserably and now it holds dental equipment.
You want 3000x with good resolution, use a STEM. Visible light just hasn't got a small enough wavelength to resove fine details. I wonder though why they don't use EM waves of a shorter wavelength like UV with a photodetector that can actually "see" these wavelengths. Though something tells me they do.
I looked into it and yeah, UV microscopy is a thing. As is microscopy utilizing soft x-rays in the same manner. But apparently you can tune electrons to almost any wavelength. So that's why STEMs are more common.
Maybe you can use a UV light source and then use a UV camera to take photos. Might save you a few million dollars.
Let me just pull out a quarter million dollars and grab one
@puckay Put sunscreen on them.
Electronics uses both X-Ray and Electron microscopes. When you are trying to resolve things with a size heading for 1/10,000 the wavelength of visible light it starts getting a mite hairy. EG fault "blips" on the line widths of .07nm lithography.
Wow, I actually learned something today. Great explanation. If it wasn't for your visual examples I don't think it would have made much sense to me. 👍
This guy talks fast. I had to turn it down from the usual 2x speed I watch all videos on to 1.5x speed.
Great video. I hadn't even thought about this, although the last microscope I used was an electron microscope so my expectation of what an optical microscope would be able to achieve had been slightly distorted! It's the same as this with telescopes also, even things like planets look much better at lower magnification.
Thank you very much for your video, it is really very helpful for someone who is starting in the hobby as me. But I didn’t understood how can I determine the useful amplification for a set of lens. How can I choose between different lenses? Is there some kind of specification that determines their quality, or “sharpness” in certain amplifications?
Yes, there is a number (the numerical aperture or NA) printed on the lens, and the higher the number, the better the theoretical resolution. Higher magnifying objectives have a higher NA. BUT: this is only theoretical. There are many other factors that determine lens quality and there is no way that you can see this from the outside. However, for all practical purposes this does not matter in most cases and often you are not given a choice anyway when buying a microscope. Apochromatic objectives are better, but almost not affordable and you only get the image quality if your specimen is prepared properly etc. Watch the video "Microscope comparison - From very expensive to super cheap" to see a side by side image comparison.
Microbehunter thank you very much! I will check it out!
Same
I calibrate and repair lots of different microscopes, but I will think twice before I agree to rebuild another Olympus CX41 Phase Contrast unit. If you thought calibrating them at setup was stressful and tedious, rebuilding one under a homemade positive pressure hepa hood is a nightmare. Gods bless bearing retention fluid!
Interesting and useful, but there's no need for this video to be almost 10 minutes. There's too much repetition, I would cut it down to 5 minutes or less.
John Grey longer videos = monetization optimization
Tarik Essamri yeah but if you know anything, you’d know the 10-min mark gives a big difference in revenue on this website, which he didn’t hit, which invalidates your stupid talk
dillon I hope u have a cancer :)
dillon I know a lot Dillon...and I know u'll get cancer :)
About to buy my first Microscope. Glad I found this video. Very useful, thank you.
.
Hi Microbehunter,
I have just discovered your channel through this video, and I have to say I am very impressed, this exactly what I have been waiting for.
This channel should be a first port of call for any student or amateur (like myself), I have just subscribed and I cant wait to see your next video.
Thank you,
Anthony Mataabro.
.
Its also almost exactly the same situation with astronomical telescopes. Low end companies advertise small often low quality telescopes with 1000X , when in fact these instruments are only capable of 120X ,maximum, even then when sky conditions are perfect.Astronomers suffer the added handicap of atmospheric turbulence so even the best and largest amateur instruments are restricted to about 400X most of the time anyway.Like microscopes the main criteria is resolution and brightness of the image at the eyepiece that counts.
I have 100x objective
and 16x eyepiece which makes 1600x magnification
of my microscope, was this really true?
Correct. But it will be blurry, therefore there will not be many details visible.
Yes...it's true. If you like what you see, then you are ok.
It is true. However, it is going to provide no further _resolution_ over one with 600x magnification. That is a function of the illuminating wavelength, and for visible light that pretty much caps it at around 300ish nm or so. No feature smaller than that will you have any chance of seeing. The only way to change this is to change what you're illuminating with, and that requires a completely different and often dramatically more expensive microscope, e.g. electron microscopes.
As an amateur (actually not even that) thinking of getting some sort of magnifying device to examine the edges of knives, I found this video very enlightening.
Thankfully to date I have only wasted a few bucks on cheapo digitals off Ebay.
Thanks for posting.
But why haven't you listed these OTHER criteria for buying? What is the really important parameter to look for if we should ignore the magnification figures? How do you state a resolution of the microscope, for example? Is the focal length an important parameter?
Looking at examples of specimens through the 'scope is the best way to evaluate. NA (numeric aperture) is nice to know, etc. But you might have a 'scope that looks good on paper, but has chromatic aberrations, or weird-but-subtle internal reflections, or focus shift with change in magnification,...
The poster doesn't seem to have a firm grasp about the subject. The resolution of all light microscopes is exactly the same, however lens defects lower the effective resolution, therefore the best microscope is the one with the best made lenses, unfortunately there is no real metric for this. The best you could hope for is for a company to state the size of the smallest object that microscope/lenses can resolve.
Thanks so much for the information,I am going to buy a microscope and now I know better. Thanks from Sweden!
comparing optical zoom with digital zoom doesnt debunk anything. 4:50
This is why I like the advertising for electronics microscopes. Not only do they give you the magnification range they have pictures of extremely well known size items to show how well you can see them. EG an 01005 resistor (0.01 inch by 0.005 inch) is not something normally solderable by hand. You then get a picture at the different magnification levels to show how clear not only the resistor is but the "fillet" of the solder joints. Needless to say it's a completely different ball game as typically magnification is between 1.5. and 40x. Also instead of eyepieces their is a shrouded viewport you look down so the glass is actually up to 5 inches on the diagonal.
Insisting that a microscope's purpose is not to magnify is one of the stupidest things I've heard in my life. I can see he's trying to make certain points about the qualities of microscopes but he is going about it in the worst possible way.
That side-by-side comparison makes the topic seem clear. Pun intended. Excellent explanation and demonstration!
tx for the explenation. So, what is the difference between low end and high end microscope if everything share the same features? is it only the quality of the device?
In short: A. mechanics (manufacturing quality). B. modularity (exchangability of parts) C. accessories (brand microscopes have many accessories because they also manufacture for medicine, research etc.) D. reliability. But I would say that most mid-range microscopes are really fine, especially for amateur and educational use. Some high end devices allow for additional features that are not necessary for amateur and educational use (fluorescent microscopy, DIC, phase contrast, specialized polarization microscopes etc). I made another video, where I compare low and high end microscopes.
Just found your channel! Really cool. When I was smaller I used to want to be a microbiologist but now that I’m 13 I want to be a pilot, but still love microbiology
Thanks for the infos, now if i were to look for a microscope what would be the specification I would need to recognize in order to have a good structure resolution of what Im magnifying ?
Guess you'll never know :c
Reminds me of when digital cameras. Especially in the early days but I guess it still happens where people just want more megapixels. But glass isnt good enough to resolve the resolution.
My phone has over a 100 megapixel camera. But I guarantee a professional level 12 Megapixel camera will resolve an image better.
hi calvinhikes have you become a flat earther yet? If not I suggest watch a 13 part series called _What on earth happened_ by Ewaranon to learn that the earth is not a globe. I got it in my about tab.
1600x with really good lenses and immersion oil makes absolute sense over 1000x.
Hello. Let me start by saying I have really been enjoying your videos. Learning so much and I'm very inspired as I have picked up this new hobby.
I wish I had seen this video before I bought my microscope. It is a most excellent microscope and every day has been a day of new wonders. That being said I could have saved some money by getting a 1000 rather than a 2500. I've already discovered that not only is it overkill but it is impossible to work with, with anything that isn't absolutely stationary. I wanted to be able to see viruses and Chromosomes and such and now I'm finding that I didn't need that high a magnification. Well, I learned the hard way but, no regrets. I still have an excellent high quality microscope because I didn't buy on magnification alone. I'm also am an astronomy enthusiast, so I've learned allot about the need for image resolution over magnification.
Thing is with astronomy you can't observe anything on cloudy nights so I thought I needed something equally as interesting and so that's were I am today. I also wanted to tell you that when I found your videos I was captivated right away. Many other people make very technical videos that have no personality. Your videos are very engaging and have given m, in a very short time much joy in learning about everything I can see and do with my new passion. Thank you so much for what you do.
I like how maybe a month ago I accidentally happened to watch that one random microscopy video of some bacteria or whatever. Since then TH-cam has recommended me more and more such videos. Now I'm watching this and thinking maybe I should get a microscope.
The magnification on his mouth got me crying from laughter. Solid comedy gold.
Great stuff. Thanks!
What stereo microscope would you recommend up to $300?
I can not recommend anything particular, because the choice is so large and so much depends on individual needs and preferences. There is a saying: "The best microscope is the one that is used most often."
I was missing the explanation too. The explanation you added to the text is great! I think it is not possible to explain it that good in the video anyway, so now it's way better than it could have been originally.
We,ve got some pretty highend Leica scopes at my job and some of them go up to 400x and i can tell you , you can't see sh7t at that magnification!
@jclouds22 I'm not saying they're crap. At 300x they're perfectly sharp. Just around 350x and above they get very blurry.
Also they are stereoscopic and you can't really perceive depth at anything above 200/250x
We use them to inspect microchips so they don't really need to go that high but still.
Pretty sure the limit of optical microscopes is the literal size light wavelengths. So around .4 to .7um. Or i think about 1500x.
you don't talk about why those higher powers don't work. your example doesn't work either. by zooming after the fact you are reducing the resolution because there are fewer sensors being hit by the same area of sample. with your eye it's going to still be projected across the whole surface. I remember doing oil immersion in high school, so i'm guessing we're dealing with a refractive index issue at this level of magnification or are we also coming close to the resolution limit of light at those powers?
DR. Phil : " Let's put your problems under a microscope and see if we can resolve these issues. We don't wanna make 'em any bigger Lord No! they're magnified enough. I want to resolve. "
3000x magnification vs use camera to "zoom and enhance". I think we've traded one fallacy for another.
I got a binocular microscope that goes 2000x
A whole lot of talking with very little said.
Man, this vid made me sad.. but really appreciate the heads up and the free guidance!!
The digital zoom analogy is appallingly bad. Microscopes use optical magnification which is entirely different.
Not if you know the physics. IE for blue light the "resolution" has a theoretical limit of 0.0004mm for red it's worse. So magnifying anything up that is smaller than that looks very like and acts very like digital zoom.
@@gordonlawrence4749 This 10 minute rant doesn't explain that at all. That's why it's an appallingly bad analogy.
@@gordonlawrence4749 whilst that is true, 1000x magnification still leaves those objects at around 1mm in size. Still small enough that further magnification is easily justifiable.
@@joestevenson5568 Please read and understand a post before replying to it.
@@gordonlawrence4749 Can't you "super sample" it if its at low resolution - like displace the image by fractions of your maximum resolution and reconstruct a higher resolution image ?
Awesome video. I am late to the microscope-party, (just getting started), but this video helps me out big time. It is on point, it has loads of valuable info and is very good to follow for everyone. Love it! Thanks for sharing. Gonna dive right into your other videos. 🍻
This video could’ve been 1000x shorter.
But not necessary higher quality.
thank you, you are still helping out people that's only ever used the cheap 200 and 300 power scopes i need to see blood cells i like you said was just hunting down the highest i could find money aside you saved me a learning curve so to speak. subscribed and will check out your view on things.
- A 1 mm² size object or area (1 mm x 1 mm) times 1000x will be like 1000 mm² or around 3.1cm x 3.1cm in area size. For example a tardigrade.
- The biggest virus is Megavirus with 440nm diameter, so the area is 607904 nm² or 6.07904e-7 mm² magnified by 1000 then 6.07904e-4 = 0,000607904 mm². It's still too small for a microscope to see a virus then.
If even 3000x magnification doesn't make sense, then how do people see a virus ?
I just googled it and turns out this kind of microscopy is called light microscopy (max around 1500x) while for viewing virus will need electron microscopy (can be 1 or 2 or 10 million times). Funny thing is, tardigrade looks transparent under light microscope but looks solid under an electron microscope which can only see through skin in nm thickness while tardigrade is in the mm size, so that's why there are various images of tardigrade lol, transparent and solid view.
I think viruses seen under electronic microscope, and here they are talking about compound microscope
@@Mickimoss The tardigrade would have been gold plated for viewing in the scanning electron microscope.
@@Mickimoss You don't really "see" things under an electron microscope. Usually they use the word "visualize." Much below the wavelength of visible light, objects have no appearance. An electron microscope detects a pattern, which is then converted into a visual image for our sensory convenience.
You would need a fine adjustment on your fine adjustment just to center the sample.
In the same line as mega-pixels for DSLR, PMPO for speakers, Gigahertz for processors, marks and raking for students. Marketing people love to oversimplify performance to just one number to woo you into buying stuff.
why am i watching this?
cause of the music
The manufacturers are referring to the size as viewed on a video monitor. I use a 2000x scope to view very small rotary engraving bits which have a tip width of 0.1mm ...... on the monitor, they do indeed appear to be 200mm wide ......... a magnification of 2000 times. I do not use the scope to resolve things or make things appear. I use it measure the tip width and other aspect of the engraving bits.
CLICKBAIT! No explanation is given just the same thing repeated over and over again.
Great vid.
One note. Just because a microscope is advertised on Amazon as "40x to 2500x" does NOT automatically mean it's a bad scope. It can be a good scope just trying to keep up with the first-time buyer market, even with people willing to shell out good money for a quality scope.
That ten-page glossy pamphlet is intended at buyers for hospitals and universities. To sell the same 'scope on Amazon, they may need to throw in a single 25X eyepiece to be able to do that. My good STEREO scope came with a single 25X so it could say "40x to 2500x" on Amazon.
your confusing magnification with zoom.. for 10 minutes
If you want an easy example go to a large sporting goods store like Bass Pro shop or Cabelas, (when they aren't busy) find the binoculars and ask to compare 8x with 10x(12x if the have them) and compare in low cost, med cost, and top grade. Be sure you compare similar size objectives too, as this alters the brightness. Usually they have a distant target on the other side of the store just for this testing.
The summary is that 12x requires extremely steady hands, 8x is very forgiving, you get more detail from an expensive 8x than you can get from a low price 12x(even with a stand to stop hand shake). The lower cost, especially in smaller objectives, tend to cause eye strain because the image is dim and not sharp.(a subtle diffusion that can't be removed by focusing, possible color fringing in the very cheap models)
No. You're confusing magnification with zoom. They advertise high magnification, because that's exactly what they do.
Thanks for wasting 9 minutes of my time.
Magnification is the same thing as zoom. A zoom lens in photography magnifies the image when you turn the focal length from the smaller number to the larger number.
You aren't very bright, are you
Resolution and resolving power depending on wave length of the light used. Electron microscope uses electrons instead of light waves for very high resolution, but cannot be viewed by naked eye directly.
Magnification is required too, but its nothing if resolving power is low. Both should go hand in hand.
The diffraction limit of light means the highest useful magnification with a light microscope that wont be super blurry is 1500x give or take. I've gotten 1600x with a little blurry res but resolution increasing techniques like polarization can increase its resolution
Excellent explanation. Very useful and informative. Thank you and congratulations on the channel!
I think you did a great job pointing the issues out with the magnification BS ...
Man, this is a blast from the past for me, having studied in biomolecular science, using microscopes was definitely a thing. And though we didn't technically really focus on magnification X, what we did focus on was the limits of light and how it applies to samples. I think people would understand things better if you'd go into more details on that and why it's such a limiting factor.
You know, how the wavelength of light impacts an object you're trying to magnify and generally, there's few tricks to really get around that.
As a total beginner who's an expert in unrelated fields; my expectation was to be able to see microscopic life, and be able to turn something on the microscope and see more details.
I bought an Amscope b120c with max 100 oil objective and 25x eyepiece for 2500x magnification thinking if it can do that, it must already have the hardware for resolution. I found myself having to buy a 60x dry objective and 20x eyepiece which seems to be the right compromise for good enough resolution and magnification combo
I think you are right but i would say consider the situation because i have been in situations where amazon for example was more willing to discount the ones above 100x and that actually meant i could get a better microscope not in magnification but in quality of other things instead
das gilt im übrigen für alle technischen abbildungsgeräte: fotoapparate, drucker, teleskope, ... dein video war sehr hilfreich. danke !
Your point is perfectly valid, but you should explain the reason. This phenomenon was first described by Abbe in his diffraction limit.
Short explanation without math: Light consists of waves and you can totally forget seeing anything smaller than the wave length of light in a normal microscope. The wave lengths of visible light are 750-380nm, so seeing stuff like the transistors of a CPU (14nm) is completely out of the question. But the wave length is only the limit when your microscope is perfect. The second most important factor is having a large lens very close to the object to collect all angles of scattered light from the object. This can be done by using an immersion oil and sticking the lens directly onto the object. The further you go away, the smaller your lens is, the less angles you collect and your resolution suffers. At last, all of this assumes that your lenses are perfect aberration-free glass. For scientific instrumentation these days this can be safely assumened, for amateure equipment maybe not.
And now you can perhaps understand we scientists (like me) use x-rays and electrons for microscopy. The wavelengths are much smaller (sub-atomic in some cases) so that we can overcome the limitation of optical microscopy. But the prices for these instruments start where the prices for high-end optical microscopes end ... we are talking several 100k up to some millions.
When my current girlfriend came to my home the first time 8 years ago she saw my microscope which my dad gave me when I was 13. She had never used a microscope before and explaining some of the details was harder than expected, but I did manage to beam the image across the whole wall of my room with magnification probably far beyond 3000 so she could easily see what I saw and I could use my finger to explain what is what in the image which was really cool. So while magnification might not be the most important thing in microscopes, more magnification can always be useful.
From the theory of microscopes ...
The optimal magnification of the microscope is 500-1000 N.A. the lens.
If less than 500 N. A., then the quality of resolution is higher than the eye can.
If more than 1000 N.A., the eye will see a larger picture, but not in more detail.
Example. Lens 40x N.A. 0.65. optimal magnification 325-650 times. For optimal magnification, choose an eyepiece from 8x to 16x, with an increase in tube x1. If the increase in the tube is more than 1, then when choosing eyepieces, the increase in eyepieces must be reduced proportionally.
When choosing a microscope, one should look at the complete lenses (their magnification and N.A.), type of correction (I will list achromatic, planachromatic, apochromatic, plan-apochromatic in order of improvement), equipment with additional accessories (dark-field condenser, phase-contrast device, etc.)
Excellent! I wish you would have explained the physics of WHY the magnification is literally impossible (with visible light) at the stupid high values. I contacted three of the most popular microscope companies asking for photos of images made at magnifications above 1000 with their microscopes. None provided photos, only excuses!
The key "issue" imo is that unlike a telescope, which we think of as a microscopes opposite, where you can just use arbitrarily larger & larger sized Lens, when you attempt to resolve the tiny(not distant), the wavelengths of visible light is only small enough to resolve things of a similar size or greater. At least that's what sets the "limit" in principle. How close you can get to that is another matter. I'm no specialist of optics or microscopy but off hand I'd say, probably a typical 1000-1200X is plenty(for general purpose). & I'm not at all familiar with actual techniques in use, but perhaps using blue and/or even UV with capable CCD/external imaging, then a few K(that 2 or 3) might be desirable I'm not sure, maybe even otherwise in some cases. Main point 1000X VS.1500X VS. 2 or 3000X probable not typically all that significant. Especially considering that, if like the vid said, 1000X is where oil comes in. Not that such things are a big deal if you're really into it or do it professionally, but I'd take a 500X with quality lenses over a cheap-o e-bay plastic lens toy from china(no offense) of ANY "magnification".
I learned a lot.
Thanks for the video, man.
I understand....u can see 3000x but very blurry detail..
correct.
You can actually achieve magnifications with a light microscope to 8,000 X but that requires not only thinking out of the box but thinking like a mad scientist. It requires inverting the laws of optical physics and combining lens zoom systems not associated with microscopes. In my scientific imaging hobby I use 16mm projection lenses, anastigmatic torque versions, etc. To achieve super magnification you must for example be able to take a 4X microscope objective (plan achromat or higher quality) produce a clear magnification of 1,000X.
The problem with trying to get a clear resolution with a light microscope at 3,000 times is that you cannot use
either a 40x or 100X objective. A 10X is the one you want to use with a 125x optical zoom so you don't destroy your
depth of field entirely.It must be an apochromat objective so that the 125X zoom does not pull out abberations in the objective and the digital camera must be 100 megapixels or medium format film. Think out the box if you expect to achieve the impossible. The maximum magnification using this method with a 65" UHTV is 30,000X!
Finally just in case you think I pulling your leg consider what Richard Ernest (Laboratory Director, Alliance Forensics Laboratory, Forth Worth, TX) wrote to me after viewing some of my work asked me how I was able to do it. I told him it was a trade secret to which he replied:
"Thank you for your reply, albeit disappointing. Apparently there are no easy ways to obtain
the results you have been able to obtain. In essence, by hook or crook, you have been able
to get around the laws of the physical universe. My hat is off to you"
It wasn't by hook or crook--it was hundreds of hours of experimentation with lens systems,digital cameras, camcorders etc.
For people who have trouble understanding the reason behind why magnification doesn't matter: if you really want to know why you would need to take a microscopy course. Yes, an university level course. I have taken courses on electron microscopes, and have a lot of experience operating both optical and electron microscopes. There is quite a bit of physics involved. You just have to remember that all the details you are able to resolve from an optical microscope come from the objective lens, and ONLY the objective lens. Resolving power matters more than magnification. The resolving power of your microscope is limited by the wavelength of light. The shorter the wavelength, the more details you are able to resolve. Electron microscopes can show details so much better under very high magnification than optical microscopes because the wavelengths of electrons are orders of magnitude shorter than visible light wavelengths. Typically in air, the limit of the objective lens you can use is a 100x objective, and it is very close to the limit of resolving power you can achieve in air. If you need a higher resolution from an optical microscope, you should consider oil immersion lenses. The higher refractive index of the oil allows for higher resolution.
now I need a video about what to look for to get a good first microscope though
So basically it’s like the misconception with zoom on cameras, where people think 2x means it’s like standing half as far away from the subject, but all it really means is the image will look twice as big. You don’t get the increase in detail like you would from physically moving closer.
i did not watch this before i got a swift 380t and i can not see very clearly at like 400x i am not sure or more with oil so thank you i now know that it cant go further in with it i thought that i could go as far as it said