Setting up a lab

[Moldkiller]

Hello Everyone, My name is John. I have started a company that manufactures products that prevent microorganisms from growing. I am an engineer but have not had much experience in biology since college. We are not big enough yet to hire a microbiologist so I am going to start the basics myself. I have many questions. My first one is regarding equipment I need for identifying common household molds and fungus. What is a reasonably priced microscope that has photographic capability that I can purchase?

[DanielSan]

I`d say anything above 1000 EUR. But quality drastically increases with price! In our lab we have a microscope with 3,000 EUR and one around 13,000 EUR. The first one has a plug-on USB camera, which is OK (i use it for fungi) but gives you rather fuzzy pics at higher magnifications (above 200x). However, the latter microscope with integrated optics is really worth its price if you want to have more professional pics (way better contrast, sharp images even at higher magnifications) and videos with good quality.

On e-bay you you can find a lot of microscopes for several hundred €/$ (Wow, they even sell a TEM!). But in any case i would stick to trade names like Leica, Zeiss, Olympus, Nikon etc.