All, I am looking purchase microscope so I can get a good look at my coins. What is your recommendation? Thanks in advance.
I bought this without the camera (it was like $140). It is the one we used at ANA Summer Sem also http://www.amazon.com/AmScope-10x-2...e=UTF8&qid=1348710699&sr=1-7&keywords=amscope
I don't own one, but I played around with a Dino-Lite handheld magnifyer at the Baltimore show...pretty nice!
I bought a Celestron 44302-A and am very happy with it. I used it to verify varieties. It was right around $50. Hope this helps.
Just wanted to add, although its not perfect, it does take pictures and I think its really good for the money.
I use a SVP 540hr http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIPvRmwKVbs is camera/microscope(x500) Is absolutly great for closeups but needs additional lighting if you back off for pictures of whole coins (for viewing on the screen lighting is not an issue) at 12mp. don't pay more then $90 for one.
In my opinion, a microscope for coin collecting is useless, UNLESSS you like to look for minuscule varieties. A nice 7-10X loupe is good enough.
Two of the devices mentioned above have a 2-3 mp camera sensor, and the other a 5mp sensor( according to Amazon). The 540 only has optica;l zoom to 17X and then digital to 500X which is just crops . but doesn't increase the pixels. When the photo ( such as you might post here )gets above 600x800 ( approx. 5mp for whole photo) you will get fuzzy images. Magnification on these microscopes mean nothing. Magnifying fuzz 200X give 200X larger fuzz. Resolving power ( resolution) or how close 2 lines can be separated and seen as 2 lines rather than 1 fuzzy one. The Am-scope has fair resoltuion, but a 2mp camera won't give you the image you need for grading or varieties. Good microscopes like good cameras are expensive. The AM-scope can be better by shooting with a point and shoot camera with practice and macro setting , through the eyepiece. All optical laws limit the size, light,depth of field, etc. ,so it is hard to get a unit that can photo a half dollar @ 10X or a cent @ 30 X and be sharp. One should ask : How much can I spend for this. How long will I need to use it ( 2 yrs, 5 yrs, 30 yrs or more.) spread the cost over these years. Do I need eyeglasses now? If under 40 , get the best you can afford as your eyes will probably get worse. Is one eye much better than the other ( even with glasses) If so get a binocular microscope with adjustable diopter on one eyepiece, so you can set the microscope up for using both eyes without glasses and eliminate the killer headaches. Since coins aren't transparent, you will need a over stage light rather than one under the stage. Good news~ with the decrease in electronic assembly ( more robots), used inspection microscopes have appeared on the market. If the microscope you have is all you can afford , or if it serves your purchase, that works out great, but most people realize the magnification, but not the resolution. Jim
On the SVP 540hr, i will add one minor drawback, it will eat a set of cheap batterys in a day (several hours of viewing) but the duracells i put in last week still going strong.
I'm using a cheap USB digital microscope, the image quality is better compared to the scanner I've used before. The resolution is 2MP and more than sufficient, most images taken have a smaller resolution, it's important to consider a few constraints though: lightning is very important best results are achieved using daylight, the higher the resolution the more noise is expected, manual adjustment of the optics can be tricky, the CMOS sensor is small and the lens creates a fish eye effect (focus is centered and the more you move away from it the more distorted the image can look like). Also something very general that many people often don't understand, a higher resolution of 5MP compared to 2MP doesn't automatically mean that the image will be sharper. Contrast is contrary to growth in resolution falling, only good optics and a good sensor element with little noise leads to a gain in sharpness with higher resolution. Some example images, I don't claim them to be good, they're speedily produced and show what they're intended to do:
