Frequenty Asked Questions About: I. Ordering Items: 1. How do I order an adapter or microscope? 2. Can I try before I buy? 3. What if I'm not satisfied with my purchase? II. Light Staining Microscopes™ 1. Why is the Light Staining Microscope™ generally accepted by Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) units? 2. Can I tell the difference between human and dog sperm with a light staining microscope? III. Digital Micrography Adapters 1. What are the advantages of using an OSC digital micrography adapter? 2. Can I record live video with a digital camera? 3. What is the quality of the video image? 4. How does a digital microscope image compare with a film image? 5. What are the disadvantages of digital micrography? Ordering Items: 1. How do I order an adapter or microscope? Companies, Universities, and other organizations: Fax or mail request for quotation or purchase order. Individuals: Email order information. We will ship COD. 2. Can I try before I buy? Companies, universities, and other organizations: Send us an evaluation purchase order. We will ship free of charge to you, but expect you to buy the return shipping charge. Individuals: We offer a satisfaction guarantee for merchandise returned undamaged. We will refund the purchase price, but expect you to pay for the return shipping. 3. What if I'm not satisfied with my purchase? Return undamaged merchandise within 30 days and we will grant a full refund on the purchase price. However, you must pay for the return shipping charges. Light Staining Microscopes™: 1. Why is the Light Staining Microscope™ generally accepted by Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) units? Two basic reasons: The sperm image is optically enhanced, making whole sperm easy to detect and identify by both color and brightness contrast. Also, it is much easier to use than a conventional microscope: Many normal controls are removed or modified. These include the field and aperture stops. The condener focus is locked into optimal position and the specimen coarse focus has been defeated with free turning sleeves. Even the fine focus has been modified so that the range of motion is only one or two turns about the focal plane. These modifications exploit the fact that the instrument has only one non-oil objective lens and the specimen slides are all nearly the same thickness. 2. Can I tell the difference between human and dog sperm with a light staining microscope? No. The Light Staining Microscope™ is primarily used to detect and identify whole sperm and certain other microorganisms by non-microscopists under stress and time constraints. Do not purchase a Light Staining Microscope™ for morphological studies. Digital Micrography Adapters: 1. What are the advantages of using an OSC digital micrography adapter? Unlike some adapters which rely on the fine threads of the filter mount to support the weight of the digital camera, OSC adapters use the camera's own sturdy tripod mount to securely hold the camera to the microscope. This use of the proper mounting helps insure that the camera, lens and threaded filter mount are not overly stressed and damaged. The camera can be removed in seconds for other uses. There are no "dark corners" to detract from the final image. The entire field is covered. The specimen need not be moved to a special photography microscope. Instead, the lightweight digital camera and adapter can be moved to the microscope where the specimen is already set up. Photographs can be taken thru the eyepiece tube, even if a special collar is required. See this site's Adapters page for collar information. 2. Can I record live video with a digital camera? Yes. We recommend that a video monitor be used in conjunction with digital micrography in order to comfortably focus and frame the image. In case you wish to record live video, a combination monitor and VCR is a space saving choice. 3. What is the quality of the video image? It is the same as a good broadcast signal. If higher quality is needed, then a digital still camera is unsatisfactory at this time. 4. How does a digital microscope image compare with a film image? In general, a 3.3MP camera with 2X adapter will give you a satisfactory image. A number of image samples can be downloaded from the Downloads page on this site. 5. What are the disadvantages of digital micrography? The biggest one is field of view. The diagonal of our adapters is about one-half the field of view (FOV) seen through a quality DIN standard eyepiece. A film camera FOV depends upon the magnification of the projection eyepiece. For a 5X projection eyepiece the diagonal FOV will be less than for the digital camera and for a 2X projection eyepiece the FOV will be greater. The FOV of the eyepiece is always greater than that of the image recording system.