ORCA-100 Cooled Digital Camera From Hamamatsu

Cell imagining (both live and fixed) is a cornerstone technique in cellular studies and the biomedical field. Cameras are an increasingly popular purchase item for research labs. The ORCA series of cameras from Hamamatsu have a very high resolution of 1.3 million pixels and 12-bit digital output, and have fast electronic shuttering, fast readout, increased sensitivity and low noise integration that make them the ideal choice for many biomedical, scientific, as well as industrial applications.

The Orca-100 has a unique feature: the analog gain and offset for contrast enhancement of almost any image. In addition, the camera features a standard C-mount lens coupling that allows an easy connection to almost any optical microscope, and standard macro lenses, making it a very good investment for any lab. The camera uses a progressive scan interline CCD chip. It has also a Peltier cooling system that reduces dark noise and minimizes thermal drift, making this camera an ideal choice for live imaging. The Orca-100 cooled digital camera also offers full remote control from your PC. Moreover, its scan CCD chip eliminates the need for mechanical shutters and provides exceptional sensitivity in the UV and blue to green spectrum.

This camera is ideal for observation of fluorescently stained samples, including those that use Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) as a marker for specific protein distribution or samples labelled using the fluorescent antibody technique, as well as fluorescence in situ hybridization studies. It is very suitable also for brightfield, DIC, dark field, and phase contrast observation and gives an equally good performance for motility and motion studies or for stationary sample observation. Among the many applications where the Hamamatsu ORCA-100 digital camera can be used are DNA cytometry, FISH observation, ploidy analysis, particle tracking, calcium imaging, dynamics of cell components, histology, pathology and cytology studies.

I have used the Hamamatsu ORCA-100 digital camera in combination with a Nikon 2000-E microscope extensively for visualization of Drosophila embryos expressing various GFP-tagged proteins (GFP-alpha tubulin, GFP-moesin, GFP-ROD, GFP-TACC, GFP-ncd, GFP-myosin, GFP-actin, GFP-anillin, GFP-septin, etc.). I used it to visualize both live dynamics of those proteins in vivo or their distribution in fixed samples. The camera was really easy to both install and use and required minimal care. The quality of the images was great every time I used this system and some of my time-lapse video-microscopy images won the third prize and the first mention at the Cell Dance Scientific Movies Festival of the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) annual meetings in 2005 and 2006. They also became part of the ASCB Image and Video Library and can be downloaded for education or scientific purposes at: http://cellimages.ascb.org/cdm4/results.php?CISOOP1=any&CISOFIELD1=CISOSEARCHALL&CISOROOT=/p4041coll12&CISOBOX1=Silverman