The concept of "equivalence" in photography typically refers to the relationship between aperture, focal length, and sensor size to maintain a consistent field of view and depth of field across different camera formats. When photographers talk about equivalence, they're often trying to compare how a lens on a camera with a smaller sensor (like APS-C or micro four-thirds) would need to be adjusted to produce an image with a similar field of view and depth of field as a lens on a full-frame camera.
For microscope cameras, the concept of "equivalence" in the same sense as it is used in general photography does not directly apply. This is because microscope imaging works on principles that are distinct from those of general photography, focusing on magnification rather than focal length and field of view in the conventional sense. Microscope cameras are designed to capture images of specimens magnified through the microscope's optics, where considerations revolve around magnification power, resolution, contrast, and illumination rather than the field of view and depth of field associated with different sensor sizes in traditional photography.
However, some aspects of equivalence can be relevant in a broad sense, particularly regarding sensor size and resolution. For example, a microscope camera with a larger sensor might capture a wider area of the specimen at a given magnification compared to a camera with a smaller sensor. Additionally, the pixel size relative to the magnification and the resolving power of the microscope's optics can influence the detail and quality of the image captured. In these contexts, understanding how different sensor sizes and resolutions affect the final image can be important, but the considerations are specific to microscopy and the objectives of the imaging task rather than trying to maintain equivalence across sensor sizes as in general photography.
The key factors in microscope imaging include the numerical aperture of the microscope objective, the magnification, the illumination technique (e.g., bright field, dark field, fluorescence), and the camera's sensor characteristics (like pixel size and quantum efficiency). The goal is usually to optimize resolution, contrast, and accurate representation of the specimen, which are somewhat different objectives than achieving a certain field of view or depth of field equivalence found in traditional photography.