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  • Calcium Imaging

    Calcium (Ca2+) is one of the most relevant ions in the body as it is essential for e.g. the accurate timing and function of interneuronal communication or cardiomyocytes. In a physiological system, intracellular and extracellular Ca2+ concentrations ([Ca2+]) are usually not in equilibrium and the concentration gradient is maintained by the cell with a very complex system of ion channels and transporters.

  • Fluorescence Imaging

    Tissues, cells, and the smaller structures inside cells (organelles) are mostly water and are therefore transparent. Imaging tiny see-through bags of water results in images that don’t contain a lot of information, and in microscopy, it is vital to have some sort of contrast or stain that will give areas of the sample color and make them far easier to see.

  • Extended Dynamic Range

    The Retiga E7 CMOS camera features three different readout modes: Speed, Long Exposure, and the all-new Extended Dynamic Range (EDR). While Speed is a classic CMOS mode that features imaging across a large sensor at high speeds, Long Exposure and EDR feature an ultra-low dark current of 0.001 e–/p/s and allow for exposures of up to an hour, bringing CMOS into the long exposure regime, previously only occupied by CCD cameras.

  • PrimeEnhance

    There is currently a revolution in computational imaging, pairing the power of a cutting-edge scientific camera, such as the Prime Family of CMOS cameras from Teledyne Photometrics, with powerful graphics processors from the latest generation of GPUs. Machine learning, data processing, and the camera-PC interface are all going to help imaging evolve, through methods such as denoising and localization.

  • Lenses and Optics

    Optics are elements that alter the travel of light to achieve some effect. In microscopy, these effects commonly include the magnification of the light coming from the sample, the manipulation of light pattern or color, and the interaction of light with itself. In this note, the interaction of light with matter leading to refraction, the ability of light to be focused by a lens, and the manner in which a lens or collection of lenses gives magnification are presented.

  • QuantView

    With scientific cameras, emitted signals of photons from a sample are converted into an analogue voltage signal of photoelectrons, which is then converted again into a digital signal of grey levels. The conversion of photons to electrons is based on quantum efficiency, and the conversion of electrons to grey levels is based on the gain and bit depth of the camera.

  • Camera Mounts

    A microscope camera mount (also known as a lens mount) is an essential piece of hardware that interfaces between a scientific imaging camera and photo port of a microscope. This is an essential interface that secures the camera to the microscope.

  • SMART Streaming

    Triggering is a complex topic and has been previously covered in an Advanced Imaging article. With multiple triggers available for our CMOS camera families we appreciate the need for faster acquisition rates with variable exposures, especially for multi-channel live cell imaging where different fluorophores have different signal levels.

  • Thermal Control for Long Exposure Imaging

    CCDs are well-established scientific sensors for cameras. A major benefit of CCD sensors is the extremely low dark current that allows long exposure imaging. In contrast, CMOS sensors have dark currents 100-1000x greater than CCDs.

  • oSPIM and doSPIM

    Conventional fluorescence microscopy uses high-intensity light to illuminate the sample, but this excites all fluorophores in the light path, not just the plane of interest. The result is that light emitted from outside the focal plane contributes to the image.

  • Tiling Light Sheet

    Light sheet microscopy, otherwise known as selective plane illumination microscopy (SPIM), is a well-established 3D imaging technology for its ability to image large samples quickly and with high resolution in 3D. In contrast to conventional 3D imaging technologies, the sample illumination path is perpendicular to the fluorescence detection path in light sheet microscopy, as seen in Fig.1.

  • What Is Light Sheet Microscopy

    Conventional fluorescence microscopy involves flooding the whole sample with light and receiving emission light from the focal plane and also out-of-focus areas, resulting in lots of background fluorescence. Signal can be improved but involves using more intense laser light, which often results in phototoxic effects that can damage and eventually kill the sample organism.