Still another digital camera question

One of my hobbies is microscopy. The microscope I’m using has a 1.3 megapixel camera built in. While it is not bad, it does not have the sharpness I’d like.

I’m thinking getting an adapter so that I can use my 5 megapixel digital camera fitted to the scope’s eyepiece tube. However, I’m wondering whether that would actually provide better shots.

I don’t expect to print many of these, I just want them for viewing on my 19" monitor. It has been nagging me that perhaps using the camera would not really provide better images. It would have some advantages over the scope camera and the supplied software, but am wondering whether it is worth it. Any opinions?

Off the top of my head, I don’t think more megapixels will help with the issue of sharpness; it’s the lens that does that.

My thoughts would be how to improve the quality of the glass. While fine for naked eye viewing, the optical quality of the microscope lenses are not photo-quality.

What is the maximum display resolution of your computer graphics card and monitor combination?

Megapixels != quality image

Granted, a 1.3 MP image is likely to be a bit weak for filling a 19" monitor, but there’s no guarantee that the 5 MP camera has good glass, electronics, and software. There are good adapters that will do what you want, but your camera needs to be pretty good as well. What do you have?

Canon PowerShot A610.

You might be confusing sharpness, as an analog optical quality, with other image degradation such as JPG artifacts, resolution or analog/digital conversion. Certainly to capture the optical capability of a good lens, you need quality conversion.

Have you tried tweaking the resolution and JPG quality settings on your existing unit?

Which has a large CCD and excellent image quality. I’d certainly give it a shot, but I’d check on some of the digital camera forums (dpreview.com or dcresource.com) for details.