Macroscope (Wild-Leica)

A macroscope or photomacroscope in its camera-equipped version (in German: makroskop / photomakroskop) is a type of optical microscope developed and named by Swiss microscope manufacturers Wild Heerbrugg and later, after that company's merger with Leica in 1987, by Leica Microsystems of Germany, optimised for high quality macro photography and/or viewing using a single objective lens and light path, rather than stereoscopic viewing of specimens, at magnifications up to around x40 (which can be increased further with optional supplementary lenses or higher power eyepieces).

In addition to their generally good optical performance, macroscopes offer a large, fixed working distance independent of magnification setting between the bottom of the objective lens and the subject, which is advantageous for manipulation of the specimens and/or introduction of supplementary lighting, etc.

A further benefit of the macroscope principle (in contrast to the stereo microscope) is there is no parallax error (apparent lateral shift of the specimen) when acquiring "z-stacks" or focus stacked images for subsequent merging.

There also was a version of the M450 marketed as the EpiMakroScop, which had the "Epizoom" objective, essentially a Macrozoom with a permanently attached 2x front element, thus twice the magnification but only half of the potential field-of-view of its "standard" equivalent.

[7] The (later) M420 was a cheaper option than the M400, lacking the electronic controls and in-microscope photography-associated features, but allowing the user to mount a camera of their choice on the top; the M410 was its sister model, designed for observation only (no photo tube).