chemi doc mp from biorad image quality - (Nov/26/2012 )

I have recently moved to a new lab and for detection of our proteins of interest in western blots we are using a chemi doc mp imaging system from biorad. In my previousl lab i had used the older version of biorads imaging system the xrs model and to my surprise the picture quality in the xrs model appears to be much better than in the chemi doc mp system. With the chemi doc mp system i and all other users in the lab are getting alot of what i term fuzzines which is similar to what one may get when trying to tune in an old tv set. I have tried to play around with the settings but nothing i do seems to make any significant difference and so i was wondering has anybody else found the picture quality with the chemi doc mp model to be problematic when visualing with chemiluminesence and id be particularly interested to hear from people who may have used the xrs and mp models. i will hopefully in the near future put up some images so i can possibly get some feedback and suggestions.

I have used the XRS, and ours here is terrible - I won't get bands with a 1/2 hour exposure that I can easily see on film. Ours also has dust in the camera somehow so the images seem to be quite bad. It works fine for EtBr and white light applications though. Fuzziness could be due to dead pixels or the CCD failing...

I have found that the XRS is difficult to focus (essential - focus on a sheet with writing is the best way I have found) and has quite a few flaws in the operating system (no way to tell if you have reached maximum aperture opening or zoom, very slow response time between camera and device if using controls on the box).

We are just upgrading to an Odyssey which is capable of both chemi and fluorescence detection, and seems to be very comparable to film in terms of sensitivity.

Hello,

I work in the division that does imaging product development at Bio-Rad. The problem you are describing sounds unusual. I'm sure we can help you resolve it. My e-mail is Ryan_Short@Bio-Rad.com. Please feel free to reach out to me directly so that I can assist you.

Best regards,

Ryan