Cinemicrography

Earlier it was impossible to follow the evenvts within the cell due to:

i) non-visibility of cell organelles under a light microscope,

ii) maintenance of cells outside the body, and

iii) slow nature of events, like cell division or cell locomotion.It was not possible earlier to follow the events within the living cells. The first difficulty was overcome by the development of phase contrast microscopy and second was removed by the tissue culture technique. The third problem was solved with the onset of cinemicrography.

In cinemicrography the events in or about cells are continuously filmed by a camera attached to the eye piece of a microscope. The speed of exposure per unit time can be varied according to requirement. By an appropriate combination of the speed of exposure and the speed of viewing the film it is possible to see events that took 1 hour in just 1 min or 5 sec. This is very useful in making the observation on mitosis, cytokinesis, cell movement etc. On the contrary, in other cases, fast events can be slowed down for viewing, for example, the movement of cilia or flagella.