Celestron 44360 5 MP InfiniView LCD Digital Microscope with Prepared Slides 25 piece box

This little beauty boots up very quickly, demanding an SD card if you haven't already inserted on. You can operate it without the card, but there's no internal memory so obviously you won't be able to save any images. The buttons on the screen are fairly intuitive but if not it's all explained reasonably well in the instructions, allowing you to set up the typical time/date but also things like the refresh rate on external monitors.The microscope functions independently of a computer, but you can also plug it in to one, to get access to stored images (or just unplug the card and use a reader). You can also plug the microscope into a TV or monitor that has an AV jack connection - this is pretty old technology and some cheap newer TVs probably only have an HDMI connection and won't be suitable.Image quality was fine, but setting up your shots can be fiddly, in particular because using the fine adjustment makes the picture shake like the USS Enterprise under attack from Klingons. A bit of trial and error is required. In theory you can capture short video clips but... this is pretty clunky.I honestly didn't expect to enjoy using this as much as I did. I thought it was going to be a Fisher Price gimmick but the results you can get are actually quite astounding - to me at any rate, a relative microscope novice. I have a bunch of blown-up images printed out on A3 paper from my experiments currently decorating the walls of my office, to quiz unsuspecting victims who come to visit me. "Go on, guess what that is! You'll never get it".3.5 out of 5, let down mainly by flimsy construction.

Although the build quality of this Makes it seem more of a toy, I find this very useful, I'm a designer and I'm always looking out for new textures or images to use, this product gives me reasonable resolution images that whilst not huge quality are good enough to be very exciting to play with.Far from being a toy I have found this an excellent tool to play with, I just wish I had found it years ago!My only complaint is that it would have been a more complete product if supplied with the required micro SD card!It's great fun to use and I find myself looking forward to using it :)

In some respects, this is quite plasticky and flimsy but it does the job perfectly well and there's certainly some element of feeling like proper science could be done on this machine given the right mind.

This is a well designed, lightweight, portable, battery powered imaging microscope and easy to use. It is not a dissecting microscope so specimen preparation needs to be done elsewhere. To get the most out of it however you need to understanding something about photomicrogaphy and spend some more money. Shallow depth of field at high magnification is a universal problem with light microscopes. Solution: take a series of images, starting from the top of the object and working downwards, each image with a different part of the object in focus. Then put the in-focus parts of the images together manually in a standard graphics program or buy software such as Helicon Focus to do it automatically. Another possible solution is to take one image at lower magnification that is all in focus, then blow it up and smooth the pixel edges out in software such as PhotoZoomPro. Lack of side lighting can be solved by buying a white LED goose-neck lamp and turning down the built-in top light. Don't use a mixed light source. Coloured 3-dimensional objects with complex texture will send the colour balance into apparent turmoil. Solution: experiment with different coloured backgrounds (paper or cloth) until the automatic adjustments inside the machine give you a good image.

the kid looked at it about 7 times and asked ,, for his magnifying glass.. Good enough at 30 QUIID

Yes, it worked out of the box and it's certainly simple to use. The LCD screen adjusts easily for brightness and the zoom function works fine although it isn't easy to get exactly the magnification that's best, the steps are too large and the little lever to adjust is fiddly. I bought the equipment principally to look at lichens and I do get the close view I needed and the focusing control is too course so considerable patience is needed.The real downside is the build materials. The whole thing is flimsy, the white plastic table moves each time it is touched, and gentle repositioning of the subject is difficult - the whole thing moves at the slightest contact. It's just as well the button to operate the camera is on the actual base, if it were anywhere else it would be unusable.If I were buying again I would look at other options, something made of more substantial materials would be much better, but this device is better than nothing.

When you hear the word microscope you imagine something that will allow you to magnify to see things like cells. So you anticipate something that can magnify 400-fold or maybe more than 1000-fold. This is not a microscope and you are not going to see microscopic things with it. What you have hear is a magnifier with a good platform, strong illumination and a camera to grab images. This makes it an excellent tool for a hobbyist working with electronics or miniatures, which is great for me, but if you bought it for looking at biological samples you are going to be disappointed.

It feels like a toy, and in terms of build quality it is - but that doesn't mean that it can't be employed seriously. It has adequate levels of magnification for some very interesting photos, but I would want much much more for my money if I was after the 'micro' side of things.It will be very useful, within its limits, to specific hobbyists who may see this as a cheap way to achieve highly magnified photography; something that is quite expensive to set up, otherwise.I'd like it a lot more if it felt like it was going to last. Time will tell.