Taking pictures of cells in culture

[ChrisJones]

Hi all,

I have recently started a cell culture project at work and am wondering if it is possible to take decent pictures of live cells in culture flasks. I have not had much luck so far.

This is what I have available and what I have tried:

Two Olympus CK2s. One (shown in this thread) has a trinocular port and the other has a slider thing for phase contrast (apologies for my use of technical terms) and better objectives. The objectives are the same as the ones in the thread linked above, but with "PL" at the end. The cells are clearer through them, but I don't know what the difference is.

I have a VariMag II and a Nikon D5200. I don't have the proper adapter for the CK2 trinocular port, but a Nikon C-mount fits over it, so I have been able to try taking pictures. They are not very good. Here is an example (processed in PS):

Alternatively, I could use a Carl Zeiss Jena Telaval 3, which had a Contax 167MT mounted on it. I have a suitable adapter to replace this with my Nikon. Initially it seemed that this would work well, as I was using a mounted Drosophila wing for something to focus on. However, when looking at cells in a culture flask it was even worse than on the CK2. Using phase contrast made it a little better, but mostly just highlighted how dirty the microscope was.
These are the objectives on the Telaval 3: (there is also a 5x, but I can't seem to remove it).


I now don't really know what to do to progress. What I want is a quick and simple way of taking pictures of live cells in culture. What I have is a pile of uncared for microscopes that produce poor quality pictures. Should I persist with these scopes (possibly upgrade them) to try to get suitable pictures? Or would the only option be to get a new microscope + camera system? Or am I just being too hopeful by wanting half-decent pictures of cells in culture?

[Alan Wood]

Chris

Are your culture flasks designed for taking photographs through their base? The flasks that I remember would have given very distorted images, but there could be suitable ones available these days.

You should be able to take decent photos of cell cultures with your Olympus CK2. Move bits around so that the trinocular head, phase slider and phase objectives are all on the same stand. You should try to get an Olympus NFK 2.5x photo eyepiece (or an NFK 1.67x if your camera does not have a full frame sensor, assuming you can find one and can afford the $600+ they sell for on eBay).

Alan Wood

[Planapo]

ChrisJones,

What objectives did you use, do they have a correction collar that can be set to the glass thickness that you are shooting through?

E. g., two of the CZJ objectives in the picture above can be used with a glass thickness of up to 1.2 mm, at least the one in the middle seems to have a correction collar that has to be set to the thickness of the glass.

--Betty