Picked up a Lighthouse brand 10x Loupe with an LED light for $10. Realize you get what you pay for but are the pricey brand names really better loupes?
I've been using a Waltex 4X 6X 10x loupe for years. The individual lenses are pretty good but combined for the 10X it gets a little soft. For details, I use the eyepiece from a broken video camera... crystal clear and about 10X power. I use both of these for my macro shots, placing them in from of the lense of my cheapo digital camera.
Sometimes yes and sometimes no. Quality of an optical lens is usually based on the clarity of the image and whether or not the entire lens has the same level of clarity. Cheap lenses typically will show distortion around the outer edges while quality lenses will not. This affects the size of your field of view. And you want your field of view to be as large as you can get it. Loupes are like just about anything else. Some people will pay outragepous prices for loupes because they think the expensive ones are that much better. But are they really ? And even if they are a little better, is it really worth that much extra money ? I never thought so.
