We have all seen those cheap digital microscopes, whether in USB format or with its own screen, all of them promising super-clear images of everything from butterfly wings to electronics at amazing magnification levels. In response to this, we have to paraphrase The Simpsons: in this Universe, we obey the laws of physics. This applies doubly so for image sensors and optics, which is where fundamental physics can only be dodged so far by heavy post-processing. In a recent video, the [Outdoors55] YouTube channel goes over these exact details, comparing a Tomlov DM9 digital microscope from Amazon to a quality macro lens on an APS-C format Sony Alpha a6400.
First of all, the magnification levels listed are effectively meaningless, as you are comparing a very tiny image sensor to something like an APS-C sensor, which itself is smaller than a full-frame sensor (i.e., 35 mm). As demonstrated in the video, the much larger sensor already gives you the ability to see many more details even before cranking the optical zoom levels up to something like 5 times, never mind the 1,500x claimed for the DM9.
On the optics side, the lack of significant depth of field is problematic. Although the workarounds suggested in the video work, such as focus stacking and diffusing the light projected onto the subject, it is essential to be aware of the limitations of these microscopes. That said, since we’re comparing a $150 digital microscope with a $1,500 Sony digital camera with macro lens, there’s some leeway here to say that the former will be ‘good enough’ for many tasks, but so might a simple jeweler’s loupe for even less.
There are some reasonable hobby-grade USB microscopes. There are also some hard-to-use toys.
Mine sits in the soldering tools box.
Comparing this kind of ‘microscope’ to a real camera is missing the point.
I suppose could mount the micro 4:3 w macro lens on a tripod, set the whole thing sideways, connect it to a bigger screen, arrange the screen above the work area, then solder.
Or I could use the $40 chinesium digital microscope.
Which is the better choice?
Answer: Pay for assembly when you order the boards.
Any day spend soldering tiny surface mount components is a bad day.
Beware software guys bearing soldering irons!
This guy was answering a troll who claimed their cheap gear was better than his studio gear. (That was probably a mistake, as we all know to never feed the trolls.) For someone who makes their money by showing small important things in great detail to a wide audience, production values matter. It makes sense for him to spend his money on quality equipment, regardless of what some internet rando claims.
And that’s interesting to the HAD audience because we like to nerd out on high quality equipment. It wasn’t about what we do with it, or how we can best avoid it.
He’s feeding the trolls and the youtube algorithm.
Title includes troll phrase ‘Pretty Terrible’ without qualification, you are misidentifying the troll.
The cheap gear is better, for things like soldering, checking trichomes for ripeness etc.
For most things, except running a ‘Daily life of a bug’ channel.
The best camera is the one you have, ready to use.
These days, that’s usually a shitty phone camera, with awful glass and a random shot delay.
Also note that there are some jobs you don’t dare do with expensive gear.
Cheap disposable is feature!
HAD is not photography enthusiast site.
Nobody cares about someone’s new F/0.2 lens.
But we do care that someone believed that lens exists.
Will point and laugh.
absolutely not. the delay between what happens and what you see is too long and you have no depth perception.
I have a different one of these “microscopes” snagged off aliexpress for $20 shipped which I find immensely useful and provides quite a decent picture. There is no discernable delay between the item and display and my only real beef is how awful the stand is. Originally purchased this to assist with installing the seconds hand on wristwatch movements only to discover so many more projects it has assisted my aging face balls to see.
Not everyone has the same workflow or intent – eg if someone has exactly one XYZ chip and their goal is “make it run”, or wants to build a one off device or prototype iteratively (as in, there is no schematic unless you draw one after the thing is built), or build a small batch of something with components they already have on hand, “pay for assembly when you order the boards” makes no sense.
This guy is comparing sloppily made pictures with a $150 camera +lcd setup with carefully stacked images from his 10x more expensive camara to which he added probably more than double that amount of hardware for the computer.
Then @4:00 he needs a few minutes to explain that if you scale the image on a monitor to have the same size as the real life object, then it has the same size as the real life object.
Then @05:00 he’s showing the ballpoint view of his carefully focus stacked expensive camera while it’s looking at a pocket knife. I assume this is meant to be some kind of humor but I have had enough and did not see the rest of the video.
Yeah, sure, more expensive stuff is more betterer, but these cheap camera / LCD combo’s are plenty good for a whole lot of applications. I would like to see this guy soldering 0402 resistors while holding his sony camera in one hand and looking at the PC monitor behind his back.
“a few minutes to explain that if you scale the image on a monitor to have the same size as the real life object, then it has the same size as the real life object.”
Actually, he was explaining that if you scale the image to the same size as the camera sensor when you are using 1x mag lens, the photographed object size displayed on the screen will be the same size as the real life object. While I didn’t find this new/useful, it is quite different from what you are claiming he did.
He explained a bit more like dynamic range which sucks on the chinesium scope and yes he uses the stacking method for that. He is a knife enthusiast using the camera for illustrating his theories. He is filming in real time sharpening knives so yes he could theoretically use his setup for soldering but that is not his area. I am using a passive magnifying lense for soldering because these scopes are totally useless and the setup from outdoor is overkill for a simple solder job.
If the thing is digital can’t it just step through all possible focal points and present an image where everything in the viewfinder is focused?
You know, fix it in software :-)
I thought that’s what those light field cameras did.
Just twist the lens on a cheap usb webcam almost all the way in and it’ll do approx. 200-400x magnification. Granted the focus and positioning of the subject are a little tricky to get right without a little practice, but for the cost and speed, well within reach of most. If you’re careful / brave enough, you can even remove the IR filter.
Can we please stop talking about magnification factors and instead talk about the size of the object that is projected onto a single pixel?
The minoru is a great cheap option for this. I can keep one lens at super macro and the other at regular webcam focal length and it’s easy to switch between them.
Its only standard def though which is probably too crappy for most people…
My $30 USB microscope has 1 huge advantage over his expensive camera setup: I could afford it.
Works well enough for me anyway.
I recently upgraded from a middling cheap digital microscope to a professional binocular optical scope that a local college was selling off. Granted, this is comparing a scope that a bit under $300 brand new to one that cost $400 in 1960 . Still, the quality of the optical scope is miles ahead of the digital one. It is so much nicer to work under, I can’t even articulate. Ergonomics aside, having zero latency (well, maybe 1ns given that speed-of-light is non infinite) compared to tens of milliseconds is an utter game changer if you’re doing actual work under it.
This one million percent.
Also you get real depth perception and adequate working distance. Not everything has to be digital.
A decent optical stereo scope good for soldering and various micro tasks can be found for around 100 usd if you look hard enough.
You both bring up good points, but for my use case (which is to look at random things a few times a year) the $30 USB scope is plenty good enough. It does exactly what I need it to without costing me a fortune I don’t have or taking up space on my desk.
Sure it’s also a great tool, also compact and perhaps more flexible. But if someone is buying a scope primarily for soldering or I don’t know.. something like watchmaking, optical microscopes are unbeatable both in terms of experience and price, definitely worth considering at least.
Yeah those $30 USB scopes are pretty good for the money. I would say anyone who reads hackaday would probably be glad they bought one, if they don’t have something better.
They work well for inspecting PCBs, looking at fine-pitch chip pins.
For soldering, as opposed to inspection, a large 4X desk/bench magnifier works pretty well and they are inexpensive. Amazon has a nice soldering setup with magnetically attached clip arms and mounts for a board, with a large lighted magnifier on a gooseneck.
Another inexpensive option are the head-mounted magnifiers. The cheap one at Harbor Freight let’s you stack up to three lenses, allowing a number of different magnification choices.
These digital ‘microscope’ serve a purpose, but TANSTAAFL. They are not a general replacement for a good macro lens, nor for an actual microscope with quality optics and properly designed illumination (You can have my Nikon binocular scope with darkfield and eptiaxial illumination and two camera ports when you pry it from my cold, dead eyes)
I have used several over the years, for example in engineering classes to project live for students. Much better than a webcam (which I also used), in general, as it CAN be focused and gets more light, poor depth of field notwithstanding.
Also have used a better quality one in my engineering life, lipstick size, in large part for things like on-site pics where a cellphone won’t do due to focal capability, available light, access, or the current bane of no unprocessed images available. I can get RAW from the digital ‘microscope’. Kind of important for some things. It is cheap enough that I don’t worry too much about it being damaged in, shall we say, difficult environments. I will say that my Canon’s running CHDK scripts also cover the territory, for a mid-cost, but at a larger physical size, which means they can’t be snaked into some awkward areas. The lipstick form has the additional advantage of being able to mount a prism or first surface mirror to allow looking sideways.
Nah, cheap Chinese microscopes are a free lunch for 99% of people. The companies that make these sorts of products are VERY good at figuring out what features people really don’t need. If you told me 10 years ago that I could buy a digital microscope with micrometer-per-pixel resolution for 30 bucks including next-day delivery I would have never believed you.
What he doesn’t let on is that with the expensive Sony with the huge sensor, you must stack multiple photos to get any depth of field. And this requires a lot of exposure time and substantial post-processing on a computer, so not remotely real-time.
A smaller camera with smaller sensor intrinsically has a much larger depth of field, and lets you do real-time imaging. Equip both with a similar quality lens and lighting, and you’ll find the smaller camera much better suited to the moderate-magnification real-time inspection task.
He’s just looking ridiculous, trying to compare two very different things on a task neither are ideal for. Like asking “What’s better, an e-bike or a ford 150?”
The lows people will go to get clicks.
I follow the guy and he’s a decent fellow. The point he was trying to make was his camera setup was better for taking pictures of knife edges which his channel is all about. Commenters were saying the cheap microscopes were just as good and it wasn’t true besides having a lower price.
Was the headline his or HADs?
Because the unqualified ‘pretty terrible’ is just clickbait BS.
Watching the clickbait would be letting the troll win.
Not going to do it.
The clickbait title was from Maya. And I agree that it was clickbait. The original video is focused (no pun intended … I hate puns) on the application of checking a knife edge and is not a general diatribe on cheap digital cameras.
Fun fact, it actually shows the video title (or at least the beginning of it) in the video embed.
Not only that, but if you click on the video to see the title and then immediately browse away rather than watch the video, you’re not rewarding a clickbait title. Viewer retention is a very important metric to the YouTube algorithm, so clicking on the video only to browse away immediately doles out far more pain to the creator than just not clicking on it in the first place.
So in that context, it makes more sense. It’s a shame it doesn’t serve well as a standalone video. Particularly when headlined like this article.
You can buy decent digital microscopes like those from Dino-Lite, but they are pricey, my AM7115MZTL cost £658 (nearly $1000).
If you’re the type that prefers a DIY option, the HQ camera for the raspberry PI can be paired with a nice C/CS-mount macro lens (or a c-mount scope adapter if you just happen to already have a compatible microscope/dissecting scope). The Sony IMX477 in the HQ is still quite a nice sensor for the price, and while sure, something with an APS-C or full frame sensor and a high end lens can do better in absolute photo quality, I think the c-mount sensor really is in the sweet spot for this application when it comes to the tradeoff between image quality, lens size & weight, and cost. There’s a reason that c-mount adapters have been one of the dominant standards on optical microscopes and dissecting scopes…
also the pi setup makes it easy(ish) to do fun things like mounting the lens assembly on an old 3d printer gantry and driving the z axis stepper for controlled focus stacking.
On the other hand if you want something that “just works” for a reasonable price, I wouldn’t recommend the $89 Tomlov DM9 in the video unless you don’t have another camera and have very low expectations. These days, you probably already have a cell phone, and even a mid-range smartphone can probably take better photos and videos through a $10 jeweler’s loupe than you’ll get from that scope.
But if you’re willing to spend a few hundred, Tomlov (and many other manufacturers) sell perfectly nice and fit-for-purpose digital microscopes that you can just slap on your desk and work with.
This is what I have. A $380 CAD SWIFT SW380T 40X-2500X Trinocular Compound Microscope, with a Raspberry Pi 4 and a HD camera sensor screwed into the central tube. So you can look through normal binocular scope manually, or see the image on the PI’s display. It’s amazing quality for around $500 CAD and you can stream your image to a 4k TV etc.
What full frame DSLR image stacking has to do with desktop standalone microscope? Nobody is doing focus stacking to get a microscope image to analyze PCB soldering or edge burrs of a knife.
Also he didn’t show any single shot with his macro lens on DSLR, only stacked images. Why? I’m guessing they would look the same as the cheap microscope alone / single frame.
“to paraphrase The Simpsons: in this Universe, we obey the laws of physics.”
Considering that The Simpsons is an animated cartoon, their universe most definitely does NOT obey the laws of physics.
None of which addresses what I need to know for my application (soldering fine-pitch components on PCBs):
* How big is the field of view? I need to be able to FIND the spot I’m working on.
* How far away can it focus, while maintaining about 10x magnification? I need to be able to get a soldering iron in there without melting things I can’t see.
* What is the depth of field? I need to be able to see the soldering iron tip before I smash it into the components.
* How large is the camera, at the front of the lens? I sometimes need to reach components that are maybe 10mm away from taller components.
Bigger is not necessarily better, and smaller is not necessarily better, either.
I bought two digital microscopes from China, for the purpose of soldering small components while being almost blind. The cheaper one, around $100, was almost useless for me. The screen was just very, very bad. I wrote a review and gave it to a friend who found use for it. Then I spent a bit more on better, chineese brand. It was more expensive, but at least the screen was better, I’ve got three lenses to use, and despite poor lighting system I could solder even the smallest SMD components. My review as translated by Google is here:
https://ep-com-pl.translate.goog/aparatura-i-narzedzia/16009-mikroskop-cyfrowy-andonstar-ad249s-m-porzadny-mikroskop-w-przystepnej-cenie?_x_tr_sl=pl&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=pl&_x_tr_pto=wapp
I also have two digital cameras and few vintage lenses that can work as macro lenses, especially with some macro rings. I could take beautiful macro photographs and use focus stacking with my old Vivitar or Helios, or even those cheap CCTV lenses from China. But I can’t use this setup to solder. Not without external monitor and the whole setup taking the entirety of my desk.
Microscopes are for working with small stuff. Macro lenses and camera setups are for making beautiful photographs of small things. These are two different worlds and two different workflows…
Also, I’d hate to splatter flux and molten solder on a vintage lens.
It’s not too hard to make your own digital microscope by buying a stand and then getting some good machine vision C or CS mount lenses on ebay; it’s full of old factory refit seconds that work fine. There are many options for sensors, but a Raspberry Pi and the GS camera works great and is cheap to setup. You’ll spend about $300 or so, but it will be extremely high quality and the global shutter makes moving an item around under the scope just a breeze as there is no visible lag
Magnification is meaningless when talking about microscopy anyway.
What is important is the resolving power, and usually you can determine that with the numerical aperture value marked on microscope objectives.
More magnification is just less field of view. If you have a sensor with enough pixels you don’t want higher magnification but higher numerical aperture, or the resolution of your sensor will be wasted.
People should really stop comparing apples to oranges. Why the bloggers’ product reviews are pretty terrible? That is the question.
The high end macro photography setup certainly makes much nicer pictures, but it’s useless for examining something in real time. Good luck using a camera to solder a PCB under. You need a stereo microscope for that.
The real issue I run into with my microscope is simply lack of manual control. There’s no way to change exposure or white balance, at least when using the in-built display. Very frustrating when it’s otherwise perfectly capable.