Confocal Laser Scanning Microscopy (Microscopy Handbooks)

Rating:
Summary: CLSM for Dummies
Review: An excellent primer for those who have just a little knowledge, but are missing the background to handle CLSM data with confidence. Readers with some knowledge of the jargon of microscopy will find the book to be an easier read, but this reviewer had no prior knowledge and found the book extremely helpful. It gives enough fundamental information to let the potential CLSM user know where s/he is going to get into trouble. If you are going to image something for the first time, get this book. It'll keep you from interpreting artifacts.

Rating:
Summary: Good intro to the instrument
Review: I don't need to use the microscope, I just need to understand the instrument and the 3D images it produces. This book gave me the introduction I wanted.

It starts with a brief discussion the basics: illumination, scanning, and rejecting out-of-plane light. The next chapter describes a bit more about the pieces that go into the instrument and a little about the optical theory. That chapter is nowhere near what an instrument designer would need to know. It does, however, give a user enough information to use the tool effectively. The next sections discuss fluorescence, including the problems that arise when handling long and short wavelengths at through the same optics, and a little about specimen prepration using nanoparticles. The final sections briefly discuss applications and possibilities for the future of confocal microscopy.

The authors do not have much to say about specific protocols for specific applications - the level is more general and centered more on the microscope itself. Anyone who wants a how-to book for the lab bench is going to be disappointed. I wanted different information, and I got what I wanted from it.

//wiredweird

Rating:
Summary: Don't use this for Biological Applications
Review: I was dissappointed by this book. It has very little about applications, and more about the physics of the microscope. I find better explanations of the basic concept of CLSM at web sites of some of the microscope manufacturers like [manufacture names]...