Thanks to Matthew Armes, technical sales engineer for Keyence UK, who called round on Thursday to demonstrate the VHX-6000 Digital Microscope.

This is incredibly easy to use and is capable of real-time focus stacking.

Multi-angle observation by rotating the stage or tilting the lens up to 90 degrees means you don’t have the move the samples by hand. It produces images up to 1600 x 1200 – for higher res, automatic stitching is possible with the motorized stage.

Also good depth of field, embedded polarizing lens and really fast automatic focusing.

I had the opportunity to photograph some of my micro fibre plastic slides, melted snowflake and ice slides and lichens.

Images from clockwise: synthetic net bag for fruit produce, synthetic tights, melting ice, dried Lobaria Pulmonaria x 2, melting ice