Your phone is a 200X microscope - sort of
[A. Cemal Ekin] on PetaPixel reviewed the Apexel 200X LED Microscope Objective. The relatively inexpensive accessory promises to turn your cellphone camera into a microscope. Sure, lenses that clip onto your phone's camera lens aren't exactly a new idea, but this one feels a bit more substantial than the usual piece of plastic in a spring-loaded clip. Does it work? You should read [Cemal's] post for the details, but the answer - as you might expect - is yes and no.
On the yes side, you can get some nice photomicrographs of the adapter. On the negative side, your phone is not designed to accommodate microscope samples. It's also not made to stay stable at 200X.
[Cemal] found the same kind of things we found with other similar adapters. You must zoom in to fill the frame with the microscope image. Otherwise, you get a weird round image with darkness all around. The microscope works best on something flat and has a very shallow depth of field, so anything beyond us will likely be out of focus.
The device looked substantial though and had a built-in rechargeable battery and LED light. None of the photomicrographs looked bad, but you have to remember that you can't really use it unless what you want to photograph is flat, and the camera can basically lay flat above.
Could you use it with an older phone and install support to improve it? Probably, but with the focal point basically being the back of the phone, that wouldn't help much. Microscopes are relatively cheap these days, so put maybe $40 into a better instrument.
If you have a DSLR, you might think of a 3D printed microscope lens adapter. Or, take it a step further and build a full-scale open-source microscope.
[A. Cemal Ekin] on PetaPixel reviewed the Apexel 200X LED Microscope Objective. The relatively inexpensive accessory promises to turn your cellphone camera into a microscope. Sure, lenses that clip onto your phone's camera lens aren't exactly a new idea, but this one feels a bit more substantial than the usual piece of plastic in a spring-loaded clip. Does it work? You should read [Cemal's] post for the details, but the answer - as you might expect - is yes and no.
On the yes side, you can get some nice photomicrographs of the adapter. On the negative side, your phone is not designed to accommodate microscope samples. It's also not made to stay stable at 200X.
[Cemal] found the same kind of things we found with other similar adapters. You must zoom in to fill the frame with the microscope image. Otherwise, you get a weird round image with darkness all around. The microscope works best on something flat and has a very shallow depth of field, so anything beyond us will likely be out of focus.
The device looked substantial though and had a built-in rechargeable battery and LED light. None of the photomicrographs looked bad, but you have to remember that you can't really use it unless what you want to photograph is flat, and the camera can basically lay flat above.
Could you use it with an older phone and install support to improve it? Probably, but with the focal point basically being the back of the phone, that wouldn't help much. Microscopes are relatively cheap these days, so put maybe $40 into a better instrument.
If you have a DSLR, you might think of a 3D printed microscope lens adapter. Or, take it a step further and build a full-scale open-source microscope.
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