Various methods of video-enhanced microscopy combine TV cameras with light microscopes creating images with improved resolution, contrast and visibility of fine detail, which can be recorded rapidly and relatively inexpensively. The AVEC (Allen Video-enhanced Contrast) method avoids polarizing rectifiers, since the microscope is operated at retardations of λ/9- λ/4, where no anomaly is seen in the Airy diffraction pattern. The iris diaphram is opened fully to match the numerical aperture of the condenser to that of the objective. Under these conditions, no image can be realized either by eye or photographically. Yet the image becomes visible using the Hamamatsu C-1000-01 binary camera, if the camera control unit is equipped with variable gain control and an offset knob (which sets a clamp voltage of a D.C. restoration circuit). The theoretical basis for these improvements has been described.
