Celestron 44340 LCD Digital LDM Biological Microscope
by Celestron
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List Price: Our Price: $159.95 You Save: $157.00 (50%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $127.92 (click here) Category: Digital Camera See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Celestron 44340 LCD Digital LDM Biological Microscope
Customer Review: Excellent Microscope for the Digital Age
Summary: 5 Stars
I had an ordinary optical "200x" microscope and saw a few shaky, interesting things in a drop of water on a glass slide, I but had no good way to take a photo. Holding a digital camera up to the eyepiece was problematic at best. I'd heard of USB microscopes that connected to a PC, such as the QX3. Checking the reviews on Amazon quickly dissuaded me from that. Then I found the Celestron 44340. It had a built-in 2MP digital camera. Images were saved to internal memory and transferred to the PC via USB cable, or to a SD card. I was also concerned about getting good images. In books like Guide to Microlife (ISBN 0-531-11266-7), there were excellent photos in darkfield illumination, as well as the usual brightfield. The Celestron 44340 did both, although darkfield only worked at the 4x and 10x objectives. I got a set of glass slides, glass cover slips, some depression slides, eyedroppers, and containers. After the summer rains, there were many places to collect samples, as well as from shorelines of rivers and lakes. I was able to successfully image in brightfield and darkfield rotifers, amoebas, flatworms, copepods, ostracods, shrimp hatchlings, vorticella, bursaria, diatoms and algae, and a variety of fast-moving ciliates. In addition to digital photos of up to 2 megapixels in size, I also recorded movies of a few seconds to a few minutes, sometimes switching between 4x magnification to 10x or 40x to get more details, and even switching between brightfield and darkfield. If I found something interesting, I could use software to extract a still image. The only CON I can think of is that when the microscope is turned off then back on, the internal date and time resets to 1/9/2031 8:00 PM, so any photos or movies taken all have that date, unless you manually set it every time.Customer Review: Fine little microscope
Summary: 5 Stars
For the price (less than $200.00 at Amazon) this is an fine little microscope, solidly built, portable (with a light-weight, well-designed case), easy to set up, and simple to use. The manual is clearly written and useful (except for at least one minor error: the camera icon is not on the lower left but upper left of the LCD screen ["Taking Images" p. 7]). The camera functions well. The high resolution still images I took (of blood and blue cheese) are fairly clear, and the videos of a tiny drop of aquarium water show an astounding assortment of active (albeit soon to die) microorganisms, probably in better focus than the ones observed by Leeuwenhoek. I now know why my fish seem to do well even if I forget to feed them. Illumination is appropriate, though clearly best suited for viewing transparent or semi-transparent specimens. I was especially surprised by the large amount of internal memory which, coupled with the video file format (3GP, normally used in mobile phones) permits a stunning number of image and video files to be stored. Downloading to a computer using a USB cable (supplied) is very easy - the camera simply shows up as a removable disk. If necessary, shareware conversion programs for 3GP to AVI or MPG format can be found and downloaded in a matter of minutes. The date default setting to January 9, 2031 is, however, more than a bit futuristic and might be a bug. The microscope I ordered did not suffer from the black spot on the monitor mentioned by several reviewers. I recommend this microscope for anyone who doesn't expect to get a $2000 instrument for one tenth of the price.Customer Review: Superb Microscope
Summary: 5 Stars
After reading the reviews of this microscope I was a bit aprehensive and my wife suggested that a different product would be better, but I convinced her that we should try and if it turns out to be a lemon we will return it. The microscope fully met our expectations. Specifically the precision controls are of high quality plastic and it smooth and very easy to adjust the position of the sample your are examining. The highest magnification is insanely powerful so we end up using the lower and the medium, which offers a nice and interesting view of the object, such as a dollar bill, the leg of a bug or something. It is also easy to take a picture of what you are seeing.
As to bluriness and other picture quality related issues that some users experienced I was not able to pinpoint a problem to the microscope. It's a matter of propertly adjusting the sample, ensure the built-in overhead and underneith light properly illuminates the object and of course properly selecting your object. The flatter it is, the better. As an example examining the welds on a wedding ring takes a bit of adjustment as the sample is rounded and you cannot focus sharply on an entirely rounded object. Flat and slim objects such as a bug's leg is cool!
To summarize, this is a fine quality instrument that I would recommend for child and adults alike. I am sure both Mom and Dad will be just as eager to explore items with this microscope as the child. Happy Holidays to you all!
Customer Review: Awesome Microscope!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
This product is great! I got it for my two kids (7 & 8 yrs old) for Christmas. They loved it!! It's so nice to have the LCD display instead of looking through a small hole...expecially since my son has eye problems. The magnification is awesome. We looked at money, salt, hair, and the slides that come with the microscope. The microscope is made well (not plastic) and it comes with a great storage bag to keep it safe. This is awesome for school aged kids. I'm buying more prepared slides because my kids are so excited about learning with this "toy".Customer Review: Good product
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this microscope for 150 dollars for my kids and my wife and so far everyone is happy with it. I have not found any black spot on the screen as point out other reviews. I would have liked it to have a optical sight in addition to the digital display. I have to point out that I am a neophyte in the field of microscopes so I can not compare it with others. As a complement would be good to buy any book that explains the basics in addition to the slides.