Advise please: Camera equipment for microbiology laboratory

[torsten]

I am currently looking into buying some photography equipment for a highly specialized purpose, and was hoping to get some advice:

I am working in a lab that handles highly infectious substances, and we need a camera to document these for educational purpose. The items to be photographed are plates (10 cm in diameter) with bacteria growing on them. (see examples here: Agar plate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). Some of these plates might look like ground glass due to the types of bacteria growing on them and it is important to document these features. We have a simple P&S camera, but its autofocus struggles quite often, so we are planning to upgrade, but there are a few restrictions:

The photos will be taken inside a safety cabinet, which is approx. 60 cm high x 150 cm wide x 50 cm deep. The plates will be on the floor of the cabinet, and the photo will be taken straight from above at a distance of approx. 10 – 20 cm. I can’t put my head in the safety cabinet, so I can’t use the view finder and need to rely on the display of the camera which has to be adjustable. The camera will be mounted on a small tripod.
The most important feature of the camera will be the autofocus. The camera should be able to focus on difficult objects such as a ground glass surfaces with very little contrast. Alternatively, we could use a high contrast dummy, focus on this object, lock to focus, and then replace the dummy with the actual specimen.

Our budget would be around $1500.

We don’t have any preference on the type of camera (DSLR, Bridge, P&S or Micro 4/3), as long as it has the desired features (good autofocus that can be locked and adjustable display)

The camera will be used exclusively for the purpose described above. Once the camera is in the laboratory, we cannot remove it from the lab, because of the infectious agents handled (well we could, after we heated the camera to 180°C for 30 min or submerged it in bleach for 2 h…)
Any suggestions for a suitable camera would be very much appreciated.

Cheers
Torsten

 

[Overread]

Quick question - are you able to put your hands (covered) inside the protective container in order to control the camera, or is it controlled totally via a remote cable? I'm thinking that, space allowing, a more advanced camera and manual focusing of the lens would be a superior approach over using the autofocus on cameras.

Also, to confirm, you want shots of subject that are 10cm in size exactly?

EDIT - just did a little measuring - if you can increase the quality of the tripod to something a bit more substantial and you are able to physically hold the camera itself within the contain then:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/183199-USA/Canon_2540A002_Macro_Photo_MP_E_65mm.html
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/675617-REG/Canon_4462B001_Canon_EOS_Rebel_T2i.html

Would be my suggestion. That would get you around the 2:1 magnification that you'll need for the 10cm slides, whilst also allowing increased magnification up to 5:1 if needed. The lens, however, is fully manually focused (it has no AF what so ever) so if you can't operate the camera via your hands its of no use. A DSLR setup would also require a more stable support than a point and shoot so your tripod would likely need to be a sturdier build (only guessing here).

 

[anfibil]

Have you considered one of these?



It costs around 250 USD and it seems like the results you get with it are pretty good.

 

[Overread]

That looks like a neat gadget, though you can do better as there are adaptors which will let you mount a regular DSLR or even point and shoot camera to a regular microscope setup - the bonus being increased quality from the better camera.

 

[anfibil]

That looks like a neat gadget, though you can do better as there are adaptors which will let you mount a regular DSLR or even point and shoot camera to a regular microscope setup - the bonus being increased quality from the better camera.

Yep, that is true. Though I think this microscope would be a nice "on-a-budget" option if you can live with the apparently lower resolution I wonder if you can connect a DSLR to it as well. That would allow for some future upgrade.

 

[Overread]

Just recalled this place : www.photomacrography.net :: Index

It has a much larger community of macro photographers, many of which go far further than most with using microscopes and other alternative setups. You might well find some more budget friendly or even direct experience people there who can give more specific advice for your situation.