[3dem] Zeiss SCAI/ ZI Photoscan discontinued

[Steve Ludtke]

We turned our Zeiss off about 3 years ago and haven't used it since. We now use
a set (they only cost ~$1k each) of Nikon 9000's. With a properly machined
holder (the ones they ship require some minor modifications), we found that they
outperformed our Zeiss in most respects. There is also a publication by Typke
describing some technical evaluations of these scanners.  Whenever a new
consumer grade scanner with apparent technical specifications that would make it
useful to cryoEM comes out we evaluate it, and so far none of the other
available 'consumer' grade scanners has performed as well as the Nikon (even
though on paper some look better).


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steven Ludtke, PhD              |        Baylor College of Medicine
sludtke at bcm.tmc.edu             |     Associate Professor & Co-Director
stevel at alumni.caltech.edu       | National Center For Macromolecular Imaging
V: (713)798-9020                |    Dept of Biochemistry and Mol. Biol.
F: (713)798-1625                |
                                |             Those who Do, Are
http://ncmi.bcm.edu/~stevel     |         The converse also applies

On Thu, 15 Nov 2007, Bob Grassucci wrote:

> Hi All,
> I was just wanted to inform everyone what was told to me yesterday by a
> technician from Intergraphics.   Zeiss/Intergraphics has stopped
> producing and selling the high resolution film scanner that many of us
> are still using to digitize our EM film (SCAI , Photoscan 2000).  They
> installed their final one last week.  If you have one and are still
> using it take care of it.  I am sure that as time goes on that support
> for this discontinued device will disappear in the near future as well.
> Many people are switching to CCD data collection but there are still
> some who believe in the efficiency and resolving power of EM film.
> Since there are many young investigators setting up labs for
> macromolecular imaging it may be an appropriate time to survey the 3DEM
> community as to the alternatives for digitization.  Thanks.
>     Regards,
>     Bob
>
> --
> ********************************
>
> -Robert Grassucci-
> Howard Hughes Medical Institute
> Wadsworth Center Empire State Plaza
> Albany, NY 12201-0509
> bobg at wadsworth.org
> Phone: (518)474-5821
> Fax: (518)486-2191
>
>
>
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