What microscope is affordable and good?

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Ok so I've been thinking about it for a while, and love using the ones in the lab, I'd love to get one! But I haven't any idea what to get. I don't want something expensive, or digital. Just a good ole microscope that can get some pretty close images. So I can fool around and identify stuff and perform fecal floatations for my pets.
Anyone have some suggestions?

I on the other hand am interested in something fancier. I have a nice canon DSLR that could be used to take some nifty pictures. I want a microscope that can interface with an SLR camera.

Great topic Spazzergasm.

A halfway decent optical microscope costs about a thousand dollars.

Define expensive. What is your price range?

Scopes run from toys which do work, to research grade.

I have an Olympus SZ 40 Trinocular, with the Olympus OM-4T camera, it cost as much as a car.

Now I am going to upgrade to an Olympus digital camera.

Expensive, but a clear doorway into another world.

Optics are harder to work with, and digital is getting good, cheap, and the computer screen is a better view.

As your avatar wears glasses, high eye point lens, low power, for biology, wide field.

It is like peeking through a keyhole, so consider digital.

People I know running 16" telescopes have gone digital.

The direct image capture is better than film, less steps, and easy to store.

What scopes at school do you like?

I don't want something serious. I just want to see things. I sort of prefer the non-digital because I like seeing the actual thing.
Lol...My price limit is like, 400$....Should I up it? XD The school ones are pretty simple, keyhole ones. I guess they are optic, since they have a little light under them. XD
Sorry, guys, the terms are confusing me. Can you dumb it up a bit? Thanks!

Reviews are your best friend...

I'd say try something from Edmund Scientifics:

Compound Microscopes

Beginner's Microscopes

I bought one from then when I was 5, and I'm still using it 20 years later.

Binocular, two eye pieces, wide field, lower power, 6x to 40x, but can make the head of a flea seem several inches long. Mainly used in Biology, for things with bodies. Also used in disection and electronics inspection. A wide field and open base lets lots more fit to look at, a leaf, feather, can see a whole coin, or zoom to the mint mark. See the inside of a gem, and for fectal flotations, looking for worms, other parasites.

Compound have several lenses of different power on the bottom, 100x, 300x, 600x, 1,000x, used with slides, flat subjects, for they have little depth of field, it is in focus, or gone. Good for hunting Bacteria, looking at the contents of cells, would see the dust on the eyelash of a flea.

There are some good ones, for $50 compound, to $200 stereo zoom. Edmund Scientific is good.

Brouse, shop around, see what fits. There are some deals on ebay, they do not wear out. Edmond Scientific is a retail, some of the Buy It Now are discount sellers of the same model. The Internet is your friend.

The simple compound uses a mirror below with a light that comes through the slide, The subject has to be flat, slide mounted, and transparent.

Biological are lit from a ring around the top, for non transparent subjects. Lower power, wider field, and more depth of field, what is in focus. Great for watching live bugs.

A simple binocular with a ring light around the lens is the most useful. As all lenses are made by computer now, and everything in plastic in China, you can get a good scope for very little money.

Just make sure that the one you get does what you want.

Thanks, guys! This is very informative. So can a binocular miscroscope see bacteria and stuff good?

When I worked for the drug company, they had video attachments so you could magnify a few hundred times and look at things on your screen. Those were about $9,000, though.

You might also check the Scientific salvage companies, used equipment, etc. You might get more bang for the Turkish Lira...

Scientific salvage companies. Those sound promising. XD I hope they have them here.

Maybe also the microscopes sell for kids. Propably not the best quality, but easy to use. I guess they must now use LED rather that a incandescent tiny bulbe that you had constantly to replace.

You kick ass inventor. Biological is what I want. I'd like to look at tardigrades too, if I could.

Do they show the transparent subjects, too? And cells and stuff.

I LOVE waterbears! they are so epic.

http://www.biologicalmicroscopes.com/

That place has affordable stuff. But does it look like quality stuff?

The Biological are good for looking at a whole Pietri dish, zooming in to watch fungi fight colonies of molds, and almost down to the single spores. Mostly they top out at less than 100x, mostly half that.

Looking at one bacteria, several hundred x, and looking at the cell structure of a bacteria, 1000 x.

Compound scopes, several lenses, 40 x to 1000x, cover the next step down, Now it takes preparing slides, staining, and bottom lit.

The usual is using the low power biological to scan wide, then pick out something, like first look at the gill structure of a mushroom, then at higher power the single spores that will confirm which Amanita it is, lunch, or death. Many have failed at poisoning, when they chose the common version, not the deadly one. Only by the shape of the spores can you be sure, and that takes several hundred power.

So for general lab work both are needed, one more powerful than a magnifying glass, then one that can take it down as far as optics can go. At 1000x, a drop of oil goes on top of the slide, the lens goes in the oil, a fraction away from the glass, and the field of view is narrow and shallow. It will show structure, but to identify something, takes several steps, general group, details that say which in that group, and then what it had for lunch.

For something like an ant species, a low power may be all that is needed, but if you are looking for the parasite in a bee hive, that step would be for collecting samples, that would then be made into slides, and viewed as the bugs on bugs. Lady Bugs can carry a mold that when they walk on grapes gives the resulting wine a musty flavor. Different species of Lady Bug carry different parasites, molds, fungi, so identity runs from the larger to smaller.

Of course an Electron Microscope will show the Virus on the fungi, other virus on the mold, other on the Lady Bug. The Black Death was not the rat, the flea, but what lived in the gut of the flea, and the broad field scope is good for slicing fleas, and mounting their gut on a slide.

Now to the compound scope where distance is so vast, that a mechanical stage is needed to move the slide, two knobs that move it on an x y axis. For the flea gut is now ten times what can be seen at the lower powers. First find the right place, lift the lens, turn to a higher power, and back in for a closer look, at one tenth the area.

Roughly, the Biological goes up to 40 to 70 power, the Compound starts there, and goes to 1000 to 1200. Biological can be lit from below, above, or both, so can compound. The metalurgical version is for opaque materials, the crystal structure of metals.

Some lighting is from directly above, a ring around the lens, some is at an angle, often two, which shows texture and shape better, just like lighting a photograph. A single strobe on the camera makes things flat, with red eye from reflection, side lighting gives shape and depth.

All of them come in binocular versions, which give stereo view, and use both eyes, so twice the input.

In the old days we paid a lot for better lenses, one was color corrected, for on close viewing, there was a prismatic effect, and large color shift. The other was Barrel Abnormality, the curve, where the center would be in focus, the edges would be out, and if they were in, the center was out. The answer was corrected Macro lenses, expensive, but now that is all done by computers, so all lenses are good.

Basically you pay for the body, more metal costs more. The site you listed seems more metal the Edmonds Scientific. Smooth tracks, ease of use, and some of the cheaper student models that come with a kit, slides, stains, tools, are a scope and lab setup at a good price.

Some of the all plastic found in toy stores are great scopes by the standards of years past. They also come with a full set of lab supplies. Some have the digital camera, USB laptop plug, to watch your 1/2" aquarium. Optical and digital have their uses, you can save, and post your pets on WP.

The "Better Quality" are not, they are just made for rougher school use, what schools think they should buy. The optics and functions are the same.

I own the best made in 2002, $16,000 with all the camera, mounts, automatic film advance, and it does work, but no one uses film anymore, 10 Mega Pixel is better than film, my $2,500 camera can be replaced with a better digital for $500, and never buy film or pay for processing again. Photography was a family business, now I use a digital 24" roll printer, better quality than photography ever was.

It is all going the same way as computers, mine cost $2,800, I bought it used for $100, A better one can be bought now for $500.

Once the problems were worked out, which we paid for, then it was just run the machine, so cheap scopes and cameras have great lenses, because that is all that is made now.

So I would say save money, buy the toy. I have also been trying to do business with Turkey, The Postal System, Import duties, Bakshese to the locals, web sites that are infected with malware, virus, it has been a lot of fun. A local better toy store might be best.

A lot of "Research Grade" is just so a scientific standard exists, you really pay for that.

"Educational Grade" is tough, and a "real scope" It is designed for the school market.

"Student Grade" is everything you need.

Try looking on ebay, "microscope," the used will show prices, brands, and give you a better idea of range. Like anything, some just look right for you.

Mine has a case to live in, dust free, with places for all the parts, a plastic dust cover for when it is on the bench, keeping them clean is helpful. They like to stay clean and dry.