There have been recent threads asking about magnifiers:
Magnafier for viewing an edge?
How To - What do you use to view your blade's condition?
I recently wrote a post in about magnifiers in:
Review - Work Sharp (belt grinder) Knife Sharpener
and thought it might be more generally useful as a separate thread -
There are some very good but cheap LED illuminated microscopes that do this well -
I recently bought all the cheapies I could find off fleaBay - and one in particular was pretty good at it, enough that I even bought the slightly lower powered version, so I have two of the same type.
Group Shot of illuminated microscopes -
the 2 that were pretty good - 60x and 45x
both of these were cheap - and I mean cheap - less than $3 shipped
I think I prefer the 60x - although the 45x image quality is better - the 60x has the higher magnification -
Before one thinks higher the better - the right most in the first group picture is a 60-100x zoom microscope - but its image quality is pretty poor - due to glare/flare in the lenses.
The "good" 60x suffers from spherical aberration - ie: its field of view is not flat - so examining flat objects or printing, either the center or edge is in focus but not both. For edges, this is not such a big problem - hence my preference - and hey! under $3 shipped I'm not really complaining - the 60x version even has an UV (blue) LED for revealing fluorescence.
Important note: some of these magnifications bear no resemblance to reality.
eg: the 60x is higher mag than the 45x - which in turn is significantly higher magnification than the magnifying glass (second from right) which was also listed as 45x.
The 60x of the good ones is no where near as high was the 60x on the zoom microscope, and not even as high as the 30x of the bottom microscope.
I understand magnification should be linear - ie: a 4x magnifier ought to make something look 4x bigger (linearly). Sometimes to boost/inflate specs some may claim area magnification which is the linear magnification squared - so that the same 4x linear magnifier could be advertised as a 16x magnifier
The good 60x, 45x and the magnifying glass show image the right way round so really ought to be classified as magnifying glasses - whereas the others the 60-100x zoom and the bottom 30x are true microscopes that show the image reversed (left/right and up/down reversed).
All of these magnifiers have one very good feature in common, they all have a clear plastic head that rests on the surface or object so that the magnifiers can be kept stationary relative to the object being viewed - this is actually a very important feature.
All except the bottom one are LED illuminated. I bought the bottom one because it was listed as LED - but it turned out to be regular (incandescent) light - when I complained the seller just refunded my money.
That bottom microscope is very similar to the Tasco 30x illuminated microscope I already have
marginally, this old Tasco illuminated microscope still has the best image quality to me.
Because of this I have another similar looking microscope illuminated by LED on order and will report on how it compares with the others (I checked with the vendor to confirm it is LED).
As of now I still prefer my Tasco 30x illuminated microscope - but it is old and no longer commonly available - it also eats AA batteries (which are actually very hard to install and remove).
Second to that would be either the 30x illuminated magnifier at the bottom of the first group pic - but it has all the disadvantages cited for the Tasco (this one cost me just under $6 shipped - the LED version I have order is about $6.50 shipped) and it did not look quite as sharp as the Tasco - so the lenses may be different despite the similar looks.
Tied second I would say was the 60x tiny LED "microscope" - but note what I said about the non-flat field of view - which may be important for examining flat objects or printing.
Will update when I get the other magnifier.
--
Vincent
http://picasaweb.com/UnknownVincent?showall=true
http://UnknownVincent.Shutterfly.com
http://UnknownVT.Shutterfly.com
http://unknownvt.multiply.com/photos
Magnafier for viewing an edge?
How To - What do you use to view your blade's condition?
I recently wrote a post in about magnifiers in:
Review - Work Sharp (belt grinder) Knife Sharpener
and thought it might be more generally useful as a separate thread -
There are some very good but cheap LED illuminated microscopes that do this well -
I recently bought all the cheapies I could find off fleaBay - and one in particular was pretty good at it, enough that I even bought the slightly lower powered version, so I have two of the same type.
Group Shot of illuminated microscopes -
the 2 that were pretty good - 60x and 45x
both of these were cheap - and I mean cheap - less than $3 shipped
I think I prefer the 60x - although the 45x image quality is better - the 60x has the higher magnification -
Before one thinks higher the better - the right most in the first group picture is a 60-100x zoom microscope - but its image quality is pretty poor - due to glare/flare in the lenses.
The "good" 60x suffers from spherical aberration - ie: its field of view is not flat - so examining flat objects or printing, either the center or edge is in focus but not both. For edges, this is not such a big problem - hence my preference - and hey! under $3 shipped I'm not really complaining - the 60x version even has an UV (blue) LED for revealing fluorescence.
Important note: some of these magnifications bear no resemblance to reality.
eg: the 60x is higher mag than the 45x - which in turn is significantly higher magnification than the magnifying glass (second from right) which was also listed as 45x.
The 60x of the good ones is no where near as high was the 60x on the zoom microscope, and not even as high as the 30x of the bottom microscope.
I understand magnification should be linear - ie: a 4x magnifier ought to make something look 4x bigger (linearly). Sometimes to boost/inflate specs some may claim area magnification which is the linear magnification squared - so that the same 4x linear magnifier could be advertised as a 16x magnifier
The good 60x, 45x and the magnifying glass show image the right way round so really ought to be classified as magnifying glasses - whereas the others the 60-100x zoom and the bottom 30x are true microscopes that show the image reversed (left/right and up/down reversed).
All of these magnifiers have one very good feature in common, they all have a clear plastic head that rests on the surface or object so that the magnifiers can be kept stationary relative to the object being viewed - this is actually a very important feature.
All except the bottom one are LED illuminated. I bought the bottom one because it was listed as LED - but it turned out to be regular (incandescent) light - when I complained the seller just refunded my money.
That bottom microscope is very similar to the Tasco 30x illuminated microscope I already have
marginally, this old Tasco illuminated microscope still has the best image quality to me.
Because of this I have another similar looking microscope illuminated by LED on order and will report on how it compares with the others (I checked with the vendor to confirm it is LED).
As of now I still prefer my Tasco 30x illuminated microscope - but it is old and no longer commonly available - it also eats AA batteries (which are actually very hard to install and remove).
Second to that would be either the 30x illuminated magnifier at the bottom of the first group pic - but it has all the disadvantages cited for the Tasco (this one cost me just under $6 shipped - the LED version I have order is about $6.50 shipped) and it did not look quite as sharp as the Tasco - so the lenses may be different despite the similar looks.
Tied second I would say was the 60x tiny LED "microscope" - but note what I said about the non-flat field of view - which may be important for examining flat objects or printing.
Will update when I get the other magnifier.
--
Vincent
http://picasaweb.com/UnknownVincent?showall=true
http://UnknownVincent.Shutterfly.com
http://UnknownVT.Shutterfly.com
http://unknownvt.multiply.com/photos
Last edited:
