I always look at electron microscope images with awe and some mixed emotions. One emotion is envy!
. How can you look at these and not lament the fact once a certain level of magnification is reached this amount of detail is simply not possible with full-spectrum light. I'm always amazed at the details to be seen.
On the other hand it does introduce a certain "distance" between subject and viewer. For me there is a sense that... "this is real... but you can't see it or experience it without the intervention an unnatural (for us humans) complex method of seeing". Ironically, although done in an attempt to make them appear more natural, this may be even more true of the highly computer colorized SEM shots. Natural colors carry a great deal of satisfying information and the feeling of "reality". While some might argue that the "unnatural" aspect can also be true with certain light-microscope techniques such as phase contrast, there are other light-microscope techniques that maintain the sense of reality and intimacy. (I think this accounts for the great appeal of many darkfield microscope shots, since in many way they seem to appear "closest" to the way we normally see physical objects). And since I like observing live "pond life" and protists, with many electron-microscope shots of such subjects there can be a feeling of observing a miniature crumpled up "road-kill". That's why (again, at least for me) some of the most satisfying light-microscope images are of live protists and other micro-creatures, swimming around, doing their "thing", and imaged via the use of electronic flash. For example, it's much more satisfying to see a good electronic flash shot of the metachronal motion of the cilia of a rotifer (even though much of it is unavoidably out of focus) in a living subject, than the (albeit far more detailed) rendition of an electron-microscope shot of a rumpled looking specimen. But... if I was curious about the appearance of the specific location where one individual cilium attached to the corona of a rotifer (or I was seriously trying to study the attachment point "mechanics")... then there is no question about which "tool" would be the best for that purpose. So they are different tools that have their individual strengths.
Would I like to be able to image with an electron microscope in addition to the light-microscope... you bet! Would I be willing to give up light-microscopes and only use an electron-microscope? It's not a realistic question, but the answer would be no.
