Topcon NW6S Fundus Camera

Competent fundus imaging with good (though not great) resolution. Requirement of external software restricts usability.

Overview

Sometimes, in the daily tasks of folks here at Acme, they spend their hours in the whither and tither of brand new instrumentation– the kind that self-aligns like a robot and produces a lattè all whilst taking a refraction and IOP reading at once. The kind that takes hours of user manual scouring to even power on, and the type that requires days of training to master. Thankfully however, we also have instrumentation that despite fairly new, is not of the wither and tither variety. The TRC-NW6S is not the most capable fundus camera in the world, nor is it the most beautiful nor the most comfortable to operate. It is however something much more simple: an ergonomic, robust, easy-to-use type-of comfort food. There is not self-aligning motors in the optical head that do the work for you- rather a simple auto-focus and auto-capture function- employed with the help of a basic 13 megapixel NIKON DSLR mounted on top. There are actual buttons and a fairly basic LCD display with basic plastic panelling and a basic joystick that all come together to produce a rather basic fundus image sent to a decent software program. And thus perhaps our take on the camera is that it is basic– but after using the camera for some time there is a certain level of attraction that comes with this basicness. Say all you need is an instrument that takes good retinal images and that’s easy-to-use; what more do you need? Topcon realizes the TRC-NW6S is in fact basic, and thus priced it accordingly. After a few years of age the NW6S has maintained its value well, and at such a great value, it’s a solid choice for most.