Portability is a huge factor for many users, especially when fieldwork in involved. With a portable digital microscope set-up, taking petrographic samples can be done easily and quickly in the lab as well as the field.
Polarized Light
When your portable microscope also has adjustable has polarized light, the contrast-enhancing technique lets you see the same sample in different ways. With fully or partially polarized light, you can see how small samples can behave and react to light. This helps give more information to help identify and evaluate the structure and composition of your specimen.
By taking it a step further with a polarized backlight, you can also look at prepared samples under cross-polarized light.
Field of view
Especially when out in the field, samples are usually larger, uneven, and require a big range of magnification.
When examining larger and unprepared samples, the digital microscope can help view the sample at a lower magnification.
By using the same microscope with a stand, you can see the same sample at a higher magnification. This can especially help decide which samples are worth taking back home to the lab and which can stay in their natural habitat.
Extended Field of View – EDOF Focus Stacking
Especially when there are uneven surfaces at a higher magnification, there can be parts that are blurry and cannot come into focus. One way to avoid that is to focus-stack your images together.
By taking multiple images of your object in different spots, you can “stack” the different images together into one much cleaner image. Dino-Lite models with Extended Depth of Field will do so automatically. Models without this feature can also export their pictures into a third-party stacking software.
Examples of samples that may need extended depth of field are loose minerals, microfossils, or other rock samples.
For more example images, you can look at our application pages on our website. Examples include geology, petrology, archaeology, and Field/Lab Analysis.
