Photometrics' "intelligent" camera aims to revolutionize viewing, evaluation of scientific data
FEBRUARY 10, 2009--Photometrics (Tucson, AZ) says its new Evolve, the "smallest and most powerful EMCCD (electron multiplying charge coupled device) camera on the market," is an intelligent bio-imaging technology destined to change the way life science researchers conduct experiments, measure results, and report study outcomes. It targets such applications as photo-activated localization microscopy (PALM), stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy(STORM), spinning disk confocal microscopy, total internal reflection fluorescence (TIRF) microscopy, cell trafficking studies, live-cell fluorescent protein imaging, and single molecule fluorescence (SMF).
According to Photometrics, scientific research, workflow, and reporting are often hindered by conflicting data and inconsistent data measurement--resulting in delays, loss of funding, and disputable study outcomes. But, the company says, Evolve enables the purest measurement of a scientific image.
"Our new Evolve camera's revolutionary features permit researchers to acquire and see images from a camera in a way that has never before been possible," notes Deepak Sharma, Ph.D., Photometrics' Camera Product Manager. "This sophisticated functionality enhances the quantitative nature of the camera by providing pixel data in electrons, resulting in more accurate and reproducible data."
Historically, scientific-grade CCD cameras provided data to researchers in arbitrary imaging units, making it time consuming and challenging to duplicate or reproduce study results. Evolve's proprietary Quant-View feature allows the camera to read out pixel values in terms of electrons, providing a repeatable methodology to data gathering and interpretation. By using Evolve in Quant-View mode, investigators can ensure their experiments are well controlled and consistent, day after day, year after year. Such improvements in data quality and consistency will enable more rapid interpretation of new and novel findings and enhance the speed of scientific discovery.
In addition to QuantView, Evolve promises the most sophisticated feature set available for true quantitative, low-light-level situations. Among these are Evolve's Top-Lock and Black-Lock complementary intensity filtering tools. Top-Lock and Black-Lock provide researchers the means to narrow visualization to the intensity range of the image features that they're investigating. Another feature, Background Event Reduction Technology (BERT) enables researchers to identify the pixels that are most likely to contain spurious event data and corrects that data, if desired. The camera's Rapid-Cal feature provides the most accurate and fast EM calibration technique in the industry, taking only 3 minutes from start to finish. Unlike other cameras, the Evolve requires no special attachments, nor does it need to be detached from the microscope, truly simplifying the calibration process.
Evolve also promises a deep-cooled platform with the lowest dark current, least read noise, and best vacuum guarantee of any EMCCD camera in the industry.
More information:
Photometrics' Evolve camera
Posted by Barbara G. Goode, [email protected].