OMAX A35180U3 18MP USB 3.0 C-Mount Microscope Camera - For Windows, Mac OS & Linux - Includes 0.5X Reduction Lens & 0.01mm Calibration Slide

As a professor of BIology I have bought many expensive CCD cameras during the past 20 years for taking pictures of biological cells through microscopes. Until this OMAX camera, none has cost less than $3000; most cost much more. They all worked beautifully but the control software of virtually all required the windows operating system. This Omax 5.0MP camera is the equal of all these research grade cameras except as regards ultra high sensitivity. The expensive cameras (whose large size chips are cooled) can make pictures of very dim epifluorescence light if you let them take exposures many seconds long. But in any bright field application where you can turn up the light, this camera is the equal of any ccd camera I have used even though all those cameras cost between 20 to 120 times as much to buy. The control software is very easy to use, complete in the degree of control it provides, works on Apple or WIndows computers. The apple software does not make time lapse movies with arbitrary times between frames. But you don't need that feature. Just use the OMAX camera to make a continuous movie (which may occupy a gigantic file size). The OMAX delivers mpg format movies which you can transcode to any format you prefer. Then use a program such as Apple's (free) iMovie to speed up the movie, perhaps making several successive speedups to achieve the timelapse framerate you want. If you turn up the microscope light bright enough to make 100 millisecond exposures, you will get 8 frames per second out of this camera at it's highest 5MP resolution and fastest scan rate. The OMAX camera provides a true C-mount female thread. Into that C-mount thread you can screw the lens tube OMAX provides which you then slide into any standard eyepiece socket (using adapter collars provided). It records accurate colors or greyscale pictures and movies. The only con of this camera is that if you buy one now, it is so good that it could infuriate you if you bought much more expensive cameras in the past.

This is a quite decent product and gives a good indication of what spending 10x more might do for you. The image quality is very usably good; but not great. The software features like extended depth of field work good, but not great (although it possibly could be a bit better with better technique - but this is due the camera's slow response time and the scope not being rock solid - like only solid - that is to say it is a bit fiddily - the more you fiddle, the better it gets - to a point.) The main problem (hence 4-star rather than 5) is that it reverses the image left-to-right and not up-and-down; so, for me, it is impossible to work from the image on the screen - that, and the response time is too slow. However, for the money, it is well worth it.

Very nice, well-built little camera. The software is intuitive and easy to use and gives you full control over color, contrast, etc. I use it on both a biological scope and a stereo scope and get excellent results -- great pictures. The 5Mp is a good size, capturing high-res photos without the files being overly huge in size. You can choose the file type for captures, of course, and even the compression factor for JPGs. The lowest JPG compression factor produces no noticeable compression artifacts, and even the most discerning of us should be satisfied with the results -- there is no real need to use a non-lossy format which produces much larger files. You also have control over where captures are saved and the choice of a few different file-naming conventions. Captures are quick and easy, allowing you to very quickly capture a series of images at different positions or slightly different focus points. Even if you want mainly to capture stills rather than video, the much better framerate of the USB3 version makes panning the sample much more pleasent to view. The mid-resolution setting for the 5Mp version is 1280x960, which is perfect for live-view on a typical monitor. Support is very good -- they are fast and ready to help. I highly recommend the OMAX series microscope cameras.

The camera works great. It may show coming with a DVD for the software, but mine did not. I was able to download a program (Toupview) and install it to get the camera working. I wrote to the company to see of they publish a manual, and they do not. There are help websites and videos out there, so it was not a deal breaker. Since there are no buttons on the camera, you definitely have to have it hooked up to a computer to work.

I purchased two different cameras from the Amscope line, but none worked within reason for the Mac. One was from the MA family, the other from the MU family. This OMAX camera works reasonably well with Mac OS. But not perfect. You will get about half of the functionality on Mac OS. I eventually gave up, and resurrected an old PC. If you want all the functionality of this camera you will have to do the same.

I worked in a biology lab, and we have several very high end microscopes, including one confocal from Leica; thus, I know a few things about capturing microscopy images. In general, a camera system that comes with major brand of microscope manufactures is very expensive, even though it is not thing but a simple box containing the sensor and the electronics. The image quality is limited by the objectives you already have on the scope. However, we pay big money of an integrated camera system and pay more for a microscope with a trinocular head over those that do not. Thus, this OMAX camera will save you thousands of dollars if you want to capture microscopy images. You replace one of the eyepieces with this, and captured images will be sent to your computer via a simple USB connection. Again the image quality is as good as your objective can deliver and you can use it on any microscopes you want. We have an old Olympus for examining IHC pathology samples. It does not have a trinocular head for a camera, but this OMAX camera changes all that. 5 MP is plenty of resolution so you can crop tissue images taken with a 5x objective to still see the cells. We mostly use it for light microscopy so we don't know how well it performs in low light (fluorescence). Highly recommended for any light microscopy.

7 months in and it works just fine.

We were looking for a cost effective camera that allow us to take decent pictures of visual defects in our products, and this is exactly what we got with this OMAX camera. It is easy to set up, the software is much better than what I had seen in similar products and it even allow us to do some basic reference measuring. No, it won't replace a video measuring system, and no, it can't be reliably calibrated to be used as primary measuring device, but it produces clear and fairly detailed pictures when attached to a good quality stereoscope, and the measuring features are nice to have when one needs to take some quick reference dimensions. Overall, this camera is a good product if you are clear on what you are paying for.