Compound vs. Stereo Takmly microscope

There are two basic types of optical light microscopes: compound (high power) and stereo (low power). Consider what you can see with each microscope.

AmScope B490 Compound Microscope

AmScope SM-4T Stereo Microscope

If you need very high magnification to view the internal structures of cells, you would most likely use a compound microscope. Compound microscopes have not only very high magnification settings, but also have very high optical resolution (meaning, you can visualize very small features in an image with the objective lenses that come with these microscopes).

Here is an example of what you would expect to see with a compound microscope:

Compound Microscope Field of View

If you need to examine solder joints on circuit boards or other relatively large objects, you would probably use a stereo microscope. Stereo microscopes have relatively low magnification settings, but also have larger focusing distances, so you can fit hands and tools between the lens and the sample. They also have larger fields of view, so you can see a larger area of a sample under the microscope. Here is an example of what you would expect to see while using a stereo microscope:

Stereo Microscope Field of View

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