I’d consider a USB microscope – small easily mounted on a flexible arm – most households have an old laptop that can serve.
Bit more expensive but useful elsewhere are the inspection camera with small detached monitor

I use a folding 8x magnifier, to examine centres, tool tips / edges.

held close to the eye it means being close to the subject, and has very shallow depth of field, but shows the subject very clearly.

Ideally you will need to find a fairly old fashioned opticians, to get one from stock, but there is always the internet!

Howard

I find telescope/microscope eyepieces, used in reverse, very good for detailed closed-up work.

Bill

Even with quality magnifiers; at 10x you are more than likely to get colour fringing.

When teaching visually impaired children their use you always try to use the lowest magnification that was useful to give a wider field of view and longer viewing distance.

An illuminated magnifier or excellent lighting is as important as the strength of the lens, and a coated lens is important too, to reduce flare.

Edited By Nick Clarke 3 on 06/02/2022 10:05:32

While I love watching Steve Fletcher at work with two or three pairs of glasses, why to I keep getting flashbacks to Professor Brainstawm in the Norman Hunter books?

Take a picture with your phone.

regards Martin

Amazon has a similar one that this thread has prompted me to get:

**LINK**

I did find one of these at Amazon.ca for a better price here.

I must say that it was a decent product. The plastic parts fit well (without reveals) and it looks much better than the price would suggest.

I'm curious though: how is the magnification (" 10x " in this case) calculated for something like this? 'cause things sure ain't ten-times bigger. Two or three-times perhaps.

They think of an impressive sounding round number and calculate most people aren't going to know any better.

Yes, most economy magnifiers and loupes are definitely not the magnification they're claimed to be.

I use a Schweizer magnifier, and Eschenbach and Belomo loupes. I have the Belomos in 8X, 10X, 12X, 15X, and 20X magnifications, though I only really use the 8X to 12X ones most of the time.

Edited By Bill Phinn on 12/02/2022 20:56:30

You could have a look HERE

The loupestore.co.uk they seem to cater for every need / budget.

I have no affiliation, just a happy customer.

Sorry Huub … couldn't understand and get past the cookie page.

It looks like what I would call a comparator – I have a similar one and it is very useful in the right circumstances.

In fact Huub, I can just edit the " .nl" part of your link to .ca (or .co.uk or .com) and go straight to it.