Your PDF makes a good point about optics... optics has been a kind of "seasoned" field for a long long time. When I was 14 or so I got a Canon Rebel SLR, the second one they made, it was 8mp. I loved it and loved taking pictures, actually made a career of it. I've only recently picked up a microscope which surprisingly my wife wanted to get, so I was all in. The parallels between old camera lenses and microscope objectives is pretty evident; some lenses, especially 1.2 primes or even wider for cameras are still coveted and genuinely don't have modern rivals for quality. I only got the microscope two weeks ago but I've gotten an HDMI c mount camera with a sony sensor on a trinocular microscope and already find that the chromatic aberration on the 40 and 60x objectives are leaving me wanting more. Through the eyepieces the lenses look fine, but on our 65" tv in the living room I can tell the optics are letting the system down... I don't expect flawless quality, but I really think a good plan 40x would be a good taste of quality objectives. There are lenses inside the telescope and it's an amscope clone actually, not even an amscope lol, but I think most of the current manufacturers use the same plans if not the same factory to make most of these scopes. I'm curious whether the aberration is coming from 1) the .5x tube I'm using to adapt the camera, 2) the lenses INSIDE the microscope itself, or 3) the objectives. I know the camera adapter tube plays some part as I was using a fixed focus tube that cost about $30 but I switched out to a $100 "amscope" adjustable focus adapter. The big issue is the scope can take 23mm eye tube adapters or some mishmash of thread sizes (something like a 25mm?) I'm not entirely sure, not sure how I would measure the threads even if I used a caliper to assess the bore of the threads on the trinocular tube. Sorry for the rambling, thanks so much for your videos, been enjoying your filmography as well as your wisdom!

I just picked up a Olympus CHBS as my first serious scope. I am a amateur and a complete noob. I couldn't agree more with the 80s as the golden age for used scopes for the amateur microscopist. I am contemplating getting mine professionaly refurbished and upgrading the objectives some time in the future.

Thank for all work

amazing!

Hey thank you for the video! Really great content I feel that there is not a lot of this kind of information about microscopy on KZfaq. This was very helpful.

Happy New Year, thanks for the good advice.

Good stuff! Thanks for the help sorting this out.

Awesome vid useful info and thank you for taking the time to make the pdf

Such a great channel. Just bought a Journey microscope and this keeps me busy during the long shipping times. I just get more and more excited everyday!

Great video, thanks!

Thank you, this topic is incredibly esoteric and difficult to get quality information without going broke from first hand experience buying everything.

Underrated.

If you look on ebay for example, a lot of old and very good quality 160mm scopes, are being sold at high prices above 400-500 euros. The phase contrast ones are ludicrous in price. If the old scope happens to have a trinocular head, that we are talking about 1000$ for a 50 year old zeiss or 700 for a Olympus BH-2. With this money, you can get a new trinocular infinity corrected scope, that obviously is more cheap in build, but better in optics. From my experience, if you are planning to record/photo what you're seeing, go for a trinocular infinity no matter what. Do not invest in 160mm scopes (new or old) because it does not worth the troubleshooting that you will have to make in order to make it work properly with a camera.

I love these videos because they answer all the questions I have but find few videos on youtube about.

UPDATE: Please read the PDF and check out this video: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/eJd_friHzb7apXk.html Hey folks, feel free to leave a comment down below! If you have some more technical or personalized questions (and a reddit account) I set up a subreddit for the channel where we can have conversations in a bit more of an organized fashion. Sometimes these sorts of discussions produce the most helpful content for other users! But you can also email me or send me a message on IG or whatever! www.reddit.com/r/DietTomsKZfaq/comments/rtdkwm/upgrading_your_amateur_microscope/

Brilliant video thanks, what quality are m & U plan objectives?

I upgraded my old scope to the amscope b490 halogen, I wanted someone close to "clinical grade" in everything but the objectives of course. The objectives are meh, and planars are definitely on my to-do list.

Hi I have a bresser microscope 40x 1600x. Well it's a cheap one, but I would like to know if I can upgrade same

what about objectives that just say plan apo with no letter?

Brilliant video

Not bad advice. Though I hate working with used stuff...always something broken with it. At around this same price, you can buy a new cheap(ish) Chinese infinity corrected microscope (something like an AmScope t720q). They come with very good plan achromat objectives and are apparently optically compatible with Olympus' infinity system (no eyepiece corrections). They also provide an upgrade path to kind of reasonable-ish current-generation fluorite and apo objectives. I think I'd, personally, rather invest in a system like that than a 1980's 160mm system.

very commercial