SANTA BARBARA, CA - March 10, 2003 - Optronics ® , the leader in developing easy-to-use, high performance digital cameras for microscopy, announces an innovative and versatile mega-pixel digital camera designed to digitally capture the full 22 mm field-of-view from a variety of microscope imaging applications.

MacroFire incorporates a 4-megapixel CCD measuring 21.4mm in diagonal with 2048 x 2048 pixels that are 7.4 microns square, the optimal size for photomicrography applications. Other cameras utilize CCD's with smaller pixels that limit well depth, which will restrict dynamic range and decrease the signal-to-noise ratio.

"The advent of megapixel sensors has resulted in the misconception that a camera's quality can be determined solely by its pixel count.  Maintaining a larger photodiode and developing a larger overall sensor will result in a cleaner image that is less subject to blooming, better capable of recording the intrascene dynamic range, and having higher signal to noise ratio." - Brian Matsumoto PhD., Associate Adjunct Professor, UCSB

The Macrofire incorporates it's own native application for camera control that runs within the included Optronics PictureFrame Ô imaging application suite. PictureFrame, will paint a full-resolution color image on any large format monitor at live imaging rates. The user can superimpose the camera controls over this image in any chosen position or display the image without borders or controls delivering an enhanced viewing experience with additional image depth and detail.

Other MacroFire features include: Electronic Shuttering, Manual Exposure Control, 5-Binning Modes, 2-Independent Sub framing Modes and a universal IEEE-1394 interface.

Optronics will distribute MacroFire through its sales and marketing channel, ImagingPlanet® via a network of highly qualified regional microscopy resellers.

Imaging professionals interested in digital imaging for microscopy applications are encouraged to visit Optronics online: optronics.com or ImagingPlanet: imagingplanet.com.

Contact:

Richard Crandall
Marketing Manager
Optronics | ImagingPlanet
866.478.4336 x. 3980.
rcrandall@imagingplanet.com
http://www.optronics.com
http://www.dvmr.com
175 Cremona Dr.
Goleta, CA 93117
866.478.4336

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