Camera settings

In the Acquire ribbon, click the Camera Settings button.

You will see a dialog box specific to your camera if the camera is supported by MBF Bioscience.

  • For a list of supported cameras, contact our Sales team.
  • For help with the other tabs and with the interfaces for other cameras, contact our Technical Support team.

Settings for the QImaging Retiga 2000R color camera

General Settings

  • If the exposure is too long, the image will no longer appear to be in real-time: you will have to pause between movements of the stage to let the camera "catch up."
  • To avoid this delay in the live image when the stage is moving, we recommend that you set the exposure time to 125 ms or less.
  • Check Automatic to let the camera determine the exposure based on the percentage of luminance (70% is usually the default).

Use to boost the signal at the expense of noise in the image ()

Use to control the brightness of the image.

  • Binning: Adds pixels increase the amplitude of the signal but decrease its resolution ()
  • Set To Mono: Displays as a ‘black and white’ image instead of a color image ()

Gain and binning can be used when you need long exposures, for instance with some fluorophores.

Example: With a 3000 ms exposure, in order to see the fluorescent signal, use gain and/or binning to boost the amplitude of the signal at the expense of its quality. This will allow you to identify and focus on the signal using lower exposures.
If you later need a higher-quality image, remove the binning and gain, and increase the exposure.

Gain and binning are usually not needed for brightfield microscopy.

White Balance

Only applies to color cameras

A white balance adjustment is an alternative to a manual adjustment using the microscope's amplitude knob.

The image represented by this graph is color-balanced because the three colors have approximately the same functions on the graph. There are three methods to achieve white balance:

  • Select Area: Outline an area in the image that should be white.
  • Automatic: Explores the current image and balances the colors without specifying a white area.
  • Adjust colors manually with the individual Red, Green, and Blue sliders.