Microscope cameras and phone adapters: how to photograph what you see

A photo is how you keep a record of a slide, show a find to the rest of the family or ask someone what it is. This guide covers the three ways to take one on a home microscope, which of them fits the microscope you have, the phone settings that make the difference between a blur and a sharp picture, what megapixel figures do and don't tell you, and the free software for measuring and combining shots.

The three ways to photograph through a microscope

A phone adapter clamps onto the eyepiece and holds your phone's lens where your eye would be, so the phone sees exactly what you see. Microscopists call this afocal photography. You can still take the phone off and look by eye whenever you like.

An eyepiece camera replaces the eyepiece. You lift the eyepiece out of its tube, slide the camera in and plug it into a computer by USB, and the live picture appears on the screen. It sits inside the microscope, so nothing needs lining up, but you lose the view by eye while it's fitted.

A digital microscope has the camera built in and shows the picture on its own screen or a computer. Models such as the DTX 350 LCD are made for solid objects such as coins, circuit boards and insects, and Levenhuk says they aren't compatible with external cameras because they don't need one. There's a fourth route on laboratory microscopes, a third tube on the head called a trinocular port that takes a camera while you keep both eyepieces, but none of the hobby microscopes we sell has one.

	Phone adapter (A10)	Eyepiece camera (M300 BASE)	Digital microscope with a screen
Price band	Under £50	£100 to £200	£100 to £300, camera included
What else you need	A phone 53 to 102 mm wide	A Windows, Mac or Linux computer, and a 23.2 mm eyepiece tube	Nothing
How much of the view it records	The whole circle	The middle, about a quarter of the width at 400x	Its own view
Moving subjects	Smooth phone video, 30 frames a second or more	3 to 7.5 frames a second	Video on its screen or a computer
Measuring	Possible after calibrating in ImageJ	Built into LevenhukLite, after calibrating	In the bundled software on most models
Look by eye as well	Yes, unclip the phone	No, the camera takes the eyepiece's place	Screen only

If you have a compound microscope and a phone from the last few years, the adapter is the one to start with. It costs the least, it works on every microscope we sell and on binoculars and telescopes too, and its video is far smoother than any entry eyepiece camera.

Which one fits your microscope

A phone adapter grips the outside of the eyepiece, so it fits almost anything. The A10 takes eyepieces from roughly 25 mm up to about 60 mm across, and phones from 53 to 102 mm wide whatever their height. An eyepiece camera has to fit the tube the eyepiece sits in, and there are three common sizes: 23.2 mm on most compound microscopes, 30 or 30.5 mm on stereo microscopes, and a few oddities in between.

Microscope	Eyepiece tube	A10 phone adapter	M300 BASE	MikrOkular Full HD
Rainbow 2L, 2L PLUS, 50L and 50L PLUS	23.2 mm	Yes	Yes, and Levenhuk names it for the Rainbow 2L	Yes
Bresser Erudit and Researcher	23.2 mm	Yes	Yes	Yes
LabZZ M101	29 mm	Yes	No	No
2ST stereo	30.5 mm	Yes, on one eyepiece	No, it needs an adapter Levenhuk doesn't sell	Yes, with the 30.5 mm adapter in the box
5ST stereo	Built in	Yes, on one eyepiece	No, the eyepieces don't come out	No
DTX and other digital models	None	Not needed	Not compatible	Not compatible

Two of our compound microscopes come with a camera already. The Rainbow D2L is a Rainbow 2L with a 0.3 MP eyepiece camera, enough for watching brine shrimp on a laptop but not for printing, and the Bresser Biolux NV has a 1280 by 720 camera for Windows. If you're buying a microscope and a camera together, it's worth comparing those against a Rainbow 2L plus an A10, which gives you a sharper picture from any recent phone.

How to take a sharp photo with your phone

The first attempt usually shows a black screen or a small bright dot, and almost every fix is about where the phone's lens sits. These steps are in the order that works on the A10 and on most other clamp adapters.

1. Focus by eye first. Put the slide on, choose the objective and set the light as you'd use it, then focus until the view is sharp to your eye. The phone will see the same thing.
2. Fit the adapter to the eyepiece. If you can, line the phone up on the eyepiece while it's out of the microscope, then put it back in the tube. Microbehunter recommends this, because it's far easier to centre on the bench.
3. Use the main camera at 1x. Don't zoom. As Levenhuk points out, phone zoom only enlarges the pixels. On an iPhone Pro, turn on Settings, Camera, Macro Control so the phone doesn't switch to the ultra-wide lens on its own.
4. Centre the circle and set the height. Slide the phone until the circle of light sits in the middle of the screen, then move it towards or away from the eyepiece until the circle is as large as it gets with sharp edges. A dark ring, a small circle or a bright flare means the lens is too close to the eyepiece or too far from it.
5. Lock focus and exposure. Tap and hold on the specimen (on an iPhone a yellow AE/AF LOCK label appears). Then do the fine focusing with the microscope's knob while you watch the screen.
6. Stop the shake. Use the camera's 3-second timer, or a Bluetooth shutter, so pressing the button doesn't jog the microscope. At 400x the slightest knock shows.
7. Turn the light down. Phones tend to wash out a bright field. Lower the microscope's light until the background is a pale grey rather than white, and the specimen's colour comes back.

Frames a second: eyepiece camera and phone video

• M300 BASE at 2048 × 1536: 3 frames a second
• M300 BASE at 1600 × 1200: 5 frames a second
• M300 BASE at 1280 × 1024: 7.5 frames a second
• Phone video, standard setting: 30 frames a second

0102030

Frames a second

For anything that moves, film instead of photographing. A phone films at 30 frames a second as standard, ten times the M300 BASE at full resolution, and you can pull a still out of the clip afterwards. That's how most of the pond life you see online is captured, and our pond life guide covers what to look for and how to slow it down.

For a still specimen with depth, such as an insect leg or a thick section, try focus stacking. Take five to ten photos, turning the fine focus a fraction between each so a different layer is sharp each time, then let free software merge the sharp parts into one picture. A microscope suits this well, because the distance between the lens and the specimen only changes when you turn the knob.

How many megapixels you need

The detail in a microscope photo is set by the objective lens, not the camera. A 40x hobby objective with a numerical aperture (NA) of 0.65, the figure engraved on the lens, resolves points about 0.4 to 0.5 micrometres (µm) apart in green light. Nikon's MicroscopyU puts the 40x/0.65 figure at 0.42 µm, and says a camera needs at least two pixels, and preferably three, across each of those smallest details.

Run the numbers for a typical 10x eyepiece at 400x. It shows a circle about 450 µm across, and covering that at two pixels per detail takes roughly 1,750 to 2,150 pixels across the circle, or about 3 to 4.5 MP. A recent phone has 12 MP or more, so even with the circle filling only part of the frame it has pixels to spare. Past that point, extra megapixels add file size and no detail.

How much of the 400x view each camera records

• What you see through the eyepieceA circle about 450 µm across at 400x
• What a phone on an A10 recordsThe whole circle
• What an M300 BASE recordsAbout 113 by 84 µm from the middle, a quarter of the width

Eyepiece cameras hit a different limit. The M300 BASE's 3 MP sensor has pixels 2.2 µm across, and at 400x each of the smallest details lands on about seven of them, so it's never short of pixels. What it's short of is sensor area. The sensor is about 4.5 by 3.4 mm, and with the camera sitting where the eyepiece's own image forms it records a patch of about 113 by 84 µm of the slide at 400x, against the 450 µm circle your eye sees. The 5 MP M500 BASE uses the same pixel size on a slightly larger sensor, so it shows a larger patch, not finer detail. Start each session on the 4x objective, find what you want in the middle of the screen, then turn up the power.

Using an eyepiece camera

The M300 BASE is the camera to choose if you want the picture on a laptop for a group, want to measure what you're looking at, or prefer saving photos straight to a computer. Setting up takes about ten minutes the first time.

1. Install LevenhukLite, Levenhuk's free capture software, from the CD or Levenhuk's website. It runs on Windows 8, 10 and 11, macOS and Linux.
2. Focus a slide by eye on the 4x objective, then lift the eyepiece out and slide the camera into the 23.2 mm tube.
3. Plug the camera into a USB port, which also powers it, open LevenhukLite and select the camera.
4. Refocus while watching the screen. The camera's sensor sits at a slightly different point from your eye, so the image will be a little soft at first.
5. Set the resolution in the software. Use 2048 by 1536 for still photos and 1280 by 1024, at 7.5 frames a second, for live viewing and slow movement.

To measure, you calibrate once for each objective. Put a calibration slide (a stage micrometer, a glass slide engraved with a scale, usually 0.01 mm divisions) on the stage, photograph the scale, draw a line over a known length in the software and enter the real distance. From then on the software converts pixels to micrometres for that objective. ImageJ does the same with any photo through its Set Scale option, which is how phone pictures can be measured too.

The M300 BASE can't connect to a phone or tablet, and it doesn't fit the 29 mm tube on the LabZZ M101 or the 30.5 mm tubes on our stereo microscopes. For a stereo microscope with removable eyepieces, the Bresser MikrOkular Full HD comes with 30, 30.5 and 31.7 mm adapters in the box, though its software is Windows only.

Free software for capturing, measuring and stacking

You can do all of this without paying for software. The two paid stacking programs at the bottom are worth it only if you stack a lot.

Software	What it does	Cost	Runs on
LevenhukLite	Live view, capture, video and measuring with Levenhuk cameras	Free with the camera	Windows, macOS, Linux
ImageJ (Fiji)	Measuring, counting and adjusting any microscope photo	Free, open source	Windows, macOS, Linux
Picolay	Focus stacking and simple 3D views	Free	Windows
CombineZP	Focus stacking	Free, no longer updated	Windows
Helicon Focus	Focus stacking	Paid, from $30 a year or $115 for life (Lite)	Windows, macOS
Zerene Stacker	Focus stacking	Paid, from $89 ($39 for students)	Windows, macOS, Linux

FAQs

Can I take a photo through a microscope without an adapter?

Yes, by holding the phone's lens to the eyepiece. It's fine for a quick record at 40x, but at 400x it's very hard to keep the lens centred and still, and an adapter pays for itself the first time you try to film something moving.

Will the A10 fit my phone in its case?

It takes phones from 53 to 102 mm wide, which covers every current iPhone and Samsung Galaxy. A thick case can stop the cradle closing properly or push the lens too far from the eyepiece, so take the case off if the circle won't come into focus.

Why is there a dark ring or a bright flare in my photo?

The phone's lens is too close to the eyepiece or too far from it. Every eyepiece has a point a little above the glass, called the eyepoint, where the whole view comes to a focus, and the phone's lens needs to sit right there. Move the phone in or out a millimetre at a time until the circle is largest and its edge is sharp.

Can I connect the M300 BASE to a tablet or phone?

No. It needs a Windows, Mac or Linux computer with a USB port. For a phone or tablet, the A10 adapter is the way to do it.

Does a digital microscope need a separate camera?

No. The camera is built in, and Levenhuk says its DTX models aren't compatible with an external camera. Digital microscopes are built for solid objects. For cells on a slide, a compound microscope with an adapter or eyepiece camera gives a far better picture.

Why does the eyepiece camera show less than I see by eye?

Its sensor is smaller than the circle the eyepiece shows you. At 400x the M300 BASE records about a quarter of the width of the eyepiece view, so find your subject at low power and centre it before you change objective.

Sources

• Levenhuk product pages and questions for the A10 smartphone adapter, M300 BASE and M500 BASE cameras, checked October 2026.
• Nikon MicroscopyU, Matching camera to microscope resolution.
• Microbehunter, smartphone adapters for microscopes (2019) and what is focus stacking (2013).
• Molecular Expressions, Florida State University, common errors in photomicrography.
• Software sites: Fiji, Picolay, Helicon Focus and Zerene Stacker, prices checked October 2026.

Price bands checked October 2026 against our own listings. The megapixel figures assume a typical 18 mm eyepiece field and green light, and are rounded. The photo at the top is an AI-generated illustration.