Bright field microscopes are considered to be the simplest kind of microscope available in the market today. It also employs the simplest of techniques in order to view the sample. Know the applications where you can use bright field microscopes for.

If your line of study or field of expertise is in research, whether you are a student or a professional, there might just be the need for you to get your own microscope to aid in your studies. But with the many types of microscopes available in the market today, all varying in size and capabilities, choosing which one to get may already be a big task.

One of the more popular options when it comes to microscopes is the bright field microscope. There are certain advantages and disadvantages in using one. So, should you get one for yourself? For what applications is this microscope functional? The answers are here below.

If you are a student who wants something that is very simple to setup and use, then a bright field microscope is the best choice for you. A bright field microscope, because of the fact that it is very fundamental in shape and form, requires little or no additional apparatus at all for you to get started. Generally speaking, these microscopes work out of the box. All you have to do is to follow the instructions on the manual and you should be ready to use it.

Aside from that, a bright field microscope requires no preparation of samples. This means you need not do anything special on your specimen, like wet mount, dry mount, or stain it, before you can view it. In essence, you can just slide in the sample into the stage and under the objective lenses. If the microscope is properly calibrated, then all you have to do is to look through the eye piece and start observing. It is also possible to view live cells through a bright field microscope.

But despite these advantages, the bright field microscope has limitations too. For one thing, it has very low contrast capability. If you are going to view biological samples all the time, then bright field microscope might not be able to give you the best type of image. More often than not, the contrast of even the best bright field microscopes in the market is somewhat inferior if compared to other types of complex microscopes.

And because bright field microscopes tend to blur the focus of the item being observed, it has low optical resolution overall. Don’t expect to see a perfect image of your specimen. Because of this type of microscope’s rather low resolution, you might get to view a grainy image of the specimen you are observing. If what you really want is precision imaging, you might need to switch to a better quality microscope that is capable of high resolutions.

One other disadvantage of using bright field microscope is the fact that it uses lamp as a source of lighting. Actually, a lot of bright field microscope uses halogen lamps. This type of light source is a little hot. If you are to observe live organisms, the tendency that they would burn under the light is always there. This makes bright field microscopes the best option only if you are to view non-living things like leaf samples, hair strands, dead insects, and similar objects.

But this doesn’t mean you cannot use bright field microscopes for live cells and organisms at all. Before you can use it for such application though, you need to use heat filters for the lamps. Otherwise, you won’t be able to view the sample before it dies or become distorted.

Generally speaking, bright field microscope can be used in microbiology. For colorless specimens though, one has to use stains like Crystal violet, Safranin, or Methylene blue. For other viewing applications that will not work with white lights, then the use of a polarizing filter is required. This technique is best used in mineralogy and viewing mineral samples. Looking through the microscope to determine the innate properties of a certain mineral is common in this particular field.

A bright field microscope works well with prepared stained slides. It can also be used to analyze smears of blood samples so it is ideal for medical technologists. Marine biologists who are concerned about marine life, in the likes of pond samples, algae, and similar plants, can also be observed under this type of a microscope.