Thought I should introduce myself as a self-proclaimed Wild Zombie, but I have been using Wild/Leitz/Zeiss microscopes for the past 50 years both professionally and for my hobbies and may possibly be the longest user on the forum. I am a pathologist by profession and a rock/crystal thin section devotee by interest. I currently own: a Leitz Orthoplan with additional epi- attachments for solids etc. a Leitz Ortholux BK petrographic microscope with additional incident light. a Leica M420 with apo-zoom and some other bits and bobs. a Wild M450 converted to "M420 like" specs inclusive of T mount camera and with the makrozoom objective rather than the epi-makrozoom. I also own an Askania (Zeiss Jena) SMT4 stereo scope that I favourably compare with Wild optics/scopes, but not as visually attractive At the moment I am upgrading some Olympus scopes, both compound and metallurgical. Perhaps its time to review whether I need all these, but I pretend that I can fully justify my ever on-going purchasing since they also earn a living. (how we hobbyists delude ourselves). Having acquired an M420, I should really sell the M450 hybrid.
My advice regarding the purchase of scopes is: Buy the best you can afford.(an hopefully buy just the once.) Buy pre-owned either Leitz,Wild or Zeiss but also consider Nikon and Olympus. I would regard 1990 as the cut-off point after which the quality of the German units deteriorated and out-sourcing to China etc took off.
The above comments equally apply to both compound microscopes and stereo-microscopes, and I am surprised that not more use is made of metallurgical microscopes within the science of gemology.
Joined: Tue Jul 02, 2013 9:00 am Posts: 1322 Location: Wylie Texas but in Alaska for a while
Welcome
I lived in the uK for 12 years, and I miss it. I had several friends in Wales and did a lot of medieval reenacting with several groups based there. spend many a nice weekend at your castles.
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