Re: Oil vs water objectives

Posted by offterdi1 on
URL: http://confocal-microscopy-list.275.s1.nabble.com/Oil-vs-water-objectives-tp7579114p7579126.html

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Hi Gabriel
An excellent discussion about oil vs water can be found here (no affiliation)
http://www.microscopyu.com/articles/optics/waterimmersionobjectives.html

It is not only about brightness, more important is the loss in resolution imho.
Moreover in the 'oil case' you can also get color shifts between the
channels (..different wavelengths will result in different refraction at the
interface...).
All these problems do not only arise at sample thicknesses in the range of
50 to 100 microns but much earlier. 5-10 microns may give you a noticeable
effect already.

SO for me water lenses are the lenses of choice when it comes to
high-resolution live cell imaging (except for TIRF of course)


best

Martin
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Martin Offterdinger, PhD
Medical University Innsbruck
CCB
Division of Neurobiochemistry
Biooptics
Innrain 80-82, 1st floor, room 01.370
A-6020 Innsbruck
Austria
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