Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/02/25
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Mitch wrote:
> My wife is a microscopist and deals with Leica <on topic>, Zeiss,
> Olympus and other major optical vendors on a very regular basis
> (one of her optical microscopes cost $160K; she also uses electron
> microsopes, but that's another discussion and much higher cost).
> In her field (according to her), Olympus has made great strides
> towards parity with the big boys. She has said on occasion, that
> with some 'scopes the major differences are not with the optics,
> but with the hardware features the 'scope provides. She says Leica
> and Zeiss still have the edge optically, but Olympus is getting to
> be a very strong contender.
I am also a microscopist, and I think your wife is spot-on in every
particular. In fact, I'd say that the Olympus inverted microscope
base is the best designed and executed platform currently on the
market, and that their optics equal those of Nikon. The difference
between Leica/Zeiss and Olympus/Nikon still exists in some areas,
but it diminishes with each passing year.
There is about as much variation between samples of a particular
objective from a given company as there is between comparable
objectives from different companies.
I'd choose an Olympus research 'scope in a flat second.
..........................................................................
Alexey Merz | URL: http://www.webcom.com/alexey | email: alexey@webcom.com
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