"Can you recommend a microscope?"

I am not an expert microscopist and this is only my personal opinion. If your opinion is different to mine, good for you. However I keep getting asked "What microscope do you use? and "What microscope should I buy?", so rather than writing out the answer every time, here are my thoughts.

At some point every aspiring entomologist realises that they need a microscope. Some time later, they realize that they need a better microscope .... and so it goes. The sad fact is with microscopes, you pretty much get what you pay for (unless you are able to find a used microscope in good condition). Buying a cheap microscope may turn out to be a waste of money, buying a very cheap microscope definitely will. However, it would be stupid to spend £10,000 on a microscope if you've never used one before.

"What microscope do you use?"
I currently own three microscopes, one compound and two stereomicroscopes. In essence, a compound microscope will give higher magnifications than a stereomicroscope (there are other important differences but I'm not going into the technicalities here). 95% of my microscopy is done using a stereomicroscope but I find that I also need a compound microscope or a regular basis.



My compound microscope is an Apex Practitioner which I bought from Amazon. In recent years there has been a flood of Chinese optics into both the camera and the microscope markets. The very cheapest stuff is crap, but there are some outstanding examples of good value for money, and the Apex Practitioner is one. You can buy better microscopes if you pay more, but I would highly recommend this microscope if you're starting out.

My first stereomicroscope was an Apex Explorer, also bought from Amazon. It's not bad value for money, but after a few months I realized that I needed a better stereomicroscope. I have kept the Apex Explorer for several reasons - it's light, compact and easy to transport, and if I ever needed to I could run it off a battery pack - it's a microscope you could use in the field or take on holiday with you if you wanted to.



After a while I upgraded to a GXM XTL3T101LED trinocular stereo zoom microscope which I bought from OneStopNature. You may be able to find it cheaper elsewhere but you may end up paying more in the long run. I would strongly recommend phoning Richard Campey for a chat about what you want to do with a microscope before you buy anything.



"So that's all there is to it?"
The advantage of a trinocular microscope is that you can couple a camera directly to it rather than fiddle about trying to take photos through the eyepieces. The type of camera largely doesn't matter (for the record, I use a Sony a7RII), but coupling a camera to microscope is not entirely straightforward as additional optics are involved. The lighting you use is more important than the camera. I mostly use a cheap LED ring light but for some subjects I also use the illumination built into the XTL3T and/or additional Ikea Jansjö LED lamps. Diffusion of the light source is important or the image quality will be poor, and since microscope depth of field is very shallow, image stacking and post-processing is needed to get a clear image of a whole insect.

There is one final and important caveat: a microscope is only as good as the person using it. An expensive microscope won't make you a good microscopist. The key thing is experience. If you are able to spend time learning from an experienced microscopist, this will accelerate your progress.

Good luck!