Continuation of Olympus BX53 compared to Chinese brand microscope
See this earlier post.
I have not taken a huge amount of photos with my Chinese brand microscope during the time I owned it. Therefore a comparison is hard to make. I recently encountered the same algae (Asparagopsis taxiformis - Falkenbergia Stage / Sporophyte Stage) than I had in one of my first reef aquariums, so this presented a good test case to see just how much you get for the additional cost of a research grade microscope.
All the old photos were taken with a $500 Chinese brand microscope coupled with a $400 2.1MP Motic CCD. All new photos were taken with an Olympus BX53 microscope with UPlanSApo objectives and a Canon 600D camera. The old photos used bright field illumination, the new photos used DIC.
Chinese microscope
It is again clear that there is a vast difference in quality. The Chinese microscope allowed me to identify the algae / diatom, that much is true, but as a tool for creating photographic art it is not.