Amscope MU1000 camera - initial impressions

Hello Gene,
I am Dushyant,

I have Amscope MU500 camera with installation CD..

Problem is its work fine two days... then started
when i started the camera my pc showed that USB Device Not Recognized(One of the usb device connected to this computer has malfunctioned)

I reinstall driver , try in other PC.., try Gene. yours link (http://www.bigcatchusa.com/downloads.php) but its not effective..

so pls. help me what to do..

Dushyant

Hello Gene, and All
I am Dushyant form India,

I have amscope MU500 with installation CD..

everything goes right two days.. than Problem started..

when i started the camera my pc showed that USB Device Not Recognized(One of the USB device connected to this computer has malfunctioned)

I try reinstall Driver..

Try to other PC..

Try Gene link (http://www.bigcatchusa.com/downloads.php)..

but problem still alive..

pls. help me...

Dushyant

Hi Dushyant,

If you have installed the software on a computer and the camera worked for a few days and then quit I can only think of a few possible problems.

1. The computer is having a problem, but you say that you tried it on another computer.
2. Some other software or device on the computer is conflicting.
3. The camera itself has an intermittent problem, or the USB cable is possibly intermittent.
4. It is a known problem that web cams or built in cameras can conflict with the MU500 type cameras.

When you do an install of the ToupView software, make sure that you don't connect the camera to the computer until the installation is competed. Then plug the camera in and you will get the standard search for driver window and you can follow through with that.

I hope that this helps...
Gene

We purchased this camera and downloaded the software. We have know tried running this software on several operating systems. Each time the camera does work for a few minutes and then the picture on the computer goes black and it will not start up again. We have the version 3.2 toupview. The software does not recognize the device. Any suggestions?

wilma,

It seems strange that the camera should stop working afer a few minutes. It sounds more likely that it's a hardware problem than a software problem if the problem repeats on different computers. Can you restart the camera if you wait 15 minutes before trying it again?

Have you tried running the camera on ToupSee instead of ToupView? [www.bigcatchusa.com]

Gene

Anyone interested in trading some minerals for an Amscope MU300? Only used it a few times and decide to go to a Sony NEX 5 instead.

Gentlemen,

Thank you for an interesting and eventually informative discussion. I bought a MU1000 camera as an upgrade from the MD800 AmScope camera I had been using. I much prefer the simplicity of the software for the MD800 and in many instances this camera/software combination takes "better" pictures than the MU1000 and its software. I am an AmScope Zm-2T microscope on a rack mount rather than the pole mount. .

I found this discussion while searching for another driver for the MU1000 hoping to find one more straightforward than what I have now. Red Green & Blue sliders I understand; hue, temp, and whatever else is on there I don't understand and since I only have about 5-10 minutes at most to get a sample photo taken, processed through PhotoShop Elements and stored in my reports, I don't have time to waste sliding sliders just to see what the do.

Now, having read these posts I have temporarily set aside the color correction problem and and wondering if much of my problem with focus and lack of depth of field may not be because of a mis-match between the camera and the scope, I am photographing rock chip samples where the chip size is on the order of .5 - 2mm and the features I am trying to illustrate are individual sand grains, grain/matrix boundaries etc. The grains are around 0.05mm - 0.5 mm across.

The attached photo is about the best I have done so far and I think it was more luck and than skill.

My camera/microscope set up is in an RV mobil lab setting less than 200 feet from drilling rig so vibrations were a significant problem. I reduced them some by setting the microscope on a 2 inch thick piece of foam.

Any thoughts or commenst will be very much appreciated

I greatly enjoyed this chat about the Nyquist Theorem, etc.: I am well aware of its consequences for what I capture when I turn my cameras skyward:

[gemmacaelestis.ca]

but had never much thought about them for mineral microphotography. Now you've got me obsessing about the optical resolution of my macro lenses!

Which just goes to show again what a great resource MinDat is.....

Tony

Tony,

It is not only apparent that you are aware of Nyquist, but that you have optimized your astrophotography to its fullest. Your deep sky images are superb; nice work! And BTW, it’s not uncommon to find people doing both macro/microphotography and astrophotography. I have not yet applied myself to other than simple solar system astrophotography, but do visual observing from my observatory. And because of my engineering background, I fear that I spend far more time working on it than using it.

Anyway, I wouldn’t obsess over your objectives. They are what they are; ultimately limited by the immutable laws of optical physics and you can only aspire to squeezing out every bit of performance from them.

Cheers,
Gene

Darryl,

I don’t believe that mismatch between your camera and microscope is a major problem. Your system is oversampled, for that microscope/camera, and is not gaining anything from having 10MP. The small pixel size means lower sensitivity, about ¼ that of a 3MP camera, and will necessarily result in longer exposure times. This may be part of your problem with vibrations. Even on a foam support, high frequency vibrations may be getting through. I notice on screen vibrations with my set up and it is well isolated by foam, etc.. My suggestion would be to increase illumination if possible, thereby causing the software to shorten the exposure time appropriately. This will help with vibrations. A 150W halogen fiber optic illuminator is a must for this.

As far as depth of field is concerned, it is the nature of the beast. Resolution and depth of field are mutually exclusive. If you want high resolution, then you must pay the piper by having less depth of field. There are ways around this (multi-focus technique), but it would not be conducive to getting images out in a timely manner.

I would also suggest updating the Toupview software to the latest version. It has a “One Touch” color balance feature that works very well and relieves one of the fiddling with the sliders.

Lastly, keep in mind that it is hard to compete with many of the photos presented on Mindat. The best of these are carefully set up "studio" shots, utilizing sophisticated techniques and equipment that do not lend themselves to field work. Practicing in a non-rushed environment, not in the field, may allow you to better develop your technique.

Gene

this was a great reading, my limited study of physic allows me to grab a most but not all of it. I learned some and enjoyed the thread. only disappointment, I tried the link to ToupView_EM here. but it didn't work.

You needed to go to the downloads dropdown menu from their home page.
Direct link is now at
[www.bigcatchusa.com]

I did get the top view directly from their site and it works fine, with my old setup using a single inspection lens with built in iris and a MU800 (8MP) I get god jitter free images from under 1mm. Digital microscope also became usable with this software but only for a larger crystals, 3mm and up but not to large.

The Amscope sensor give me a flat image. How can you have field depth ? I take pictures of insects and get very poor result, if insect is flat and smooth, ok, but if it has spines, picture do not give me the spines very well.
I tried to use the "Fusion" program coming in the CD ROM with the Amscope, it works but gives me a blurry result. So far, seems I didn't get mutch for my money. Some idea how make it work better ?
Thanks,
Jean-Michel Maes
Museo Entomologico de Leon
NICARAGUA

Jean-Michel,

You are experiencing difficulty with the depth-of-field limitation inherent in any optical system. Basically, this is the range of distances from the lens that can be imaged simultaneously in sharp focus by any given optical system. As a general rule, the higher the level of magnification of an optical system, the less the depth of field will be. Because of the way our brains work, we are able to overcome this limitation to a fair extent when viewing directly through a microscope (etc) but since a camera will capture only a static 2D view, the depth-of-field limitation is starkly reproduced in every camera image.

Thanks to fast PCs, digital cameras and inventive minds, it is now possible to remove the depth-of-field limitation from digital camera images. This is done by making not just one but many images, all of which have different and marginally overlapping camera focus settings. These multiple images are then combined into one single image with an apparent depth-of-field equal to the sum of the depths-of-field of all the different images recorded. This is done using an 'image-stacking' software program. Two good ones are Combine ZP (freeware) and Helicon Focus ( a commercial product).

Be warned that making the necessary set of images and combining them is time-consuming and laborious, However, if you have a camera the focussing of which can be remotely controlled from a computer, the Helicon Focus program becomes well worth the cost of buying it because of the time and work it will save you by making automatically a whole series of differently focussed images for you to give you a final product with the depth of field that you need.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/22/2013 04:43PM by Owen Lewis (2).

Owen,

Thanks for the clear explanation of multi-focus imaging. I find myself having to explain the basics of this technique over and over again to ad nauseam. To that end, I have tried to create a simplified text/graphical explanation that hopefully is easy to understand. Perhaps it can be improved on, but here is the first iteration. You can click on it for a larger version.

I would also like to mention that Zerene Stacker software is perhaps now the de-facto standard for stacking software. Zerene Stacker interfaces directly with the StackShot automated stage, so that the number of images and increment size are all seamlessly controlled from within the program. This greatly reduces the amount of effort and tedium involved with multi-focus imaging.

Cheers,
Gene

Very nice Gene! A picture is worth a thousand words

As you say, the field is opening up. Not only are there cameras, the differential focussing of which can be software controlled by a suitable image stacker program (Helicon Focus) but there are also software controlled movable stages that are, perhaps, the best approach of all for those prepared to buy at the cost and complexity.

Here's a 'new kid on the block' you may not yet have seen. Scroll down for some nice pics.
[www.tuplaneta.es]

The products are so new that the company web-site is not yet up and running but the initial specs are impressive and the price interesting for those that are interested in the stepping stage approach to the problem. The stepping of the stage is in increments down to 1.6um!. Cost for stand, stage and robotics is > EUR 1,200 and another EUR 90.00 gets youi a software licence. I shall be waytching developments of this product line closely!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/22/2013 08:47PM by Owen Lewis (2).

Jean-Michel,

The “Fusion” program is actually a multi-focus processing program. To make use of it, you will have to take multiple images in accordance with the information provided in Owen’s and my previous post. However, my experience with that program has not been encouraging. I would suggest that you try the free CombineZ software.

You didn’t mention which model of camera you have, but here are two examples taken with a 1.3MP version of the same camera that you have. The first is a single image that shows the depth of field problem. The second image is a composite of only six separate images that were carefully hand stepped with the microscope focus knob and processed with CombineZ. A better result could have resulted from a greater number of smaller increments, but for hand stepped it's not too bad.

Cheers,
Gene


Hemimorphite single image

Hemimorphite stack of 6 images

One more link for general delectation. [macrorail.com]

Worth looking at just for the slide show of micro specimens..... and I was wrong about the degree of control over the stepping. 1.6um is the standard offering. It seems that this can be further improved to 0.6um stepping, which should fully satisfy *any* maiden's prayer. Lovely shots of a Zeiss research grade 'scope intedgrated with this robotics rig.... all I need is to rob a bank...... . For those using Google as their web browser, turning on the auto-translate feature may help further.

Hi I found that the new software and driver can be found at
[www.touptek.com]

May be this can fix your problem.

Also their FAQ is great

Field