ProgRes C14: 12 Million Pixel Digital camera

JENOPTIK LOS, the German manufacturer of the well known ProgRes 3012 and ProgRes 3008 digital cameras, recently developed a new model for microscopic applications: The ProgRes C14

The ProgRes C14 digital camera is designed as a multi-purpose digital camera for nearly all microscopic applications. It features high resolution as well as long exposure times suitable for brightfield, fluorescence and macroscopic applications.

JENOPTIK's advanced "Microscanning" technique allows for resolutions up to 12.1 million pixels with full RGB color information. By using Microscanning the full image is composed from 36 single exposures. The user can select various capture resolutions from 1030 x 1300 up to 3090x3900 pixels NON INTERPOLATED!. Between each of the single exposures the 1.3 MPixels CCD array sensor is shifted exactly half a pixel's width. The precise shifting is done by piezoelectric elements. Thereby full RGB information is recorded for each single pixel - no interpolation is needed.

The camera features an IEEE1394 interface - maybe better known as "FireWire" - for data and power transmission. FireWire offers fast data transmission at a rate of 400Mbit/s, which is an important prerequisite for fast live-images. The camera features a brilliant and fast online image allows easy focusing, up to 18 fps with 5 x 5 binning. At the same time the OHCI compliant interface enables easy usage of one camera with several computers in the lab: it's as simple as plug and play. The camera is also powered from the single firewire connection and can also run from a Notebook computer.

The software package that comes with the camera provides useful and comfortable tools for a microscopist's everyday work: Programmable Resolutions, Automatic Exposure Control, easy White Balancing, fast Live Image, Calibration Tools and much more. Of course, both Apple Macintosh and MS Windows based computers are supported. The Software is also TWAIN compliant and can run inside most popular Imaging packages such as Adobe Photoshop and Image Pro Plus.

The CCD sensor is cooled in a twostep process by a peltier element and an additonal fan. In combination with a sophisticated software algorithm this allows for integration times ranging from 0.154 msec up to 600 sec - unrivalled in its class. An internal A/D conversion of 14 bits/color corresponding to a dynamic range of typically 66dB makes possible excellent color reproduction.

The Camera features a Std C mount so it can interface to any Microscope and C mount Lenses.