henning wrote:

On Wed, 25 Feb 2004 05:47:14 GMT, "Loren A. Coe" wrote:
i am just getting introduced, thinking of sinking some $$
into a decent used or new compound biological or industrial
unit. also, any recommendations or recent experiences
would be very welcome. thanks! --Loren


Think first hard for a moment what you are going to use the scope for. I´m not sure what theterm biological microscope means in this case. As a biologist i´ve used
everything from 5X loupes to scanning electron microscopes. For most non science work I would get a stereo scope with a zoom. saay 10 to 40x magnification.
The Olympuses I´ve used were great. For the big spender a Leitz is the king

I'll agree with that. I've used many brands of compound microscopes
including the AO student types which are pretty crude. The low cost
scopes just don't compare with expensive ones. I've seen some nice
Zeiss machines but the best I've every seen were Leitz. Of course one
Leitz lens may cost as much as AO microscope. And a Leica (maker of
Leitz lenses) stereo zoom microscope I saw last week end was the cat's
pajamas, but they are spendy. Here's the thing, if you are going to
be looking in a microscope for hours each day buy the best you can
afford, maybe buy one you can't afford. Your stomach and head will
thank you if you have any tendency toward getting sick looking through
microscopes.