Its probably like a billion dollars but look at this , its neat
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Cheap price, cheap trick!
No reviews, no images that remotely look like 400x, need to get so close to subject it would be impractical to use…
I like the idea but I can do as well with a decent 30x loupe over the lens of my cheap ass iPhone 7.
Don’t waste your money @BeTheLight
Don’t mean to sound “grouchy” but I have a drawer full of iPhone gadgets that just don’t work.
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Hey I dont even have an iphone 
I dont know what the dude has in his video tbh it might be a different company
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Same! But if this works I would love one for pest ID and trichomes. 
I’m a sucker I suppose 
stupid iPhone life
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Around $30 will buy you a wireless microscope, I wouldn’t bother with the gimmicky gadgets.
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I use an 8x cheap single element Beseler photo loupe over my phone camera lens, zoomed to 2x to eliminate the vignetting. Also have even better success with an old Nikkor 50/1.8 lens reversed like the old macro tube style. Both work awesome with a steady hand holding the two devices together, you just have to range it properly from the bud (about an inch) and the autofocus does the rest
This is from the Nikkor recently, handheld, no supplemental light besides my HLG overhead:
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Disclaimer: I was a photography major in college (both traditional and digital studio process and editing besides shooting) and a working photojournalist for a minute when I was younger, still an optics nerd, from the user standpoint.
If you wanted a phone mounted lens for macro, I think the best system I’ve seen out there is the Moment cases and lenses. They’re supposed to be for photo enthusiasts who want to use their smartphone like an interchangeable lens camera, and seem to be much higher quality optics than most of the other stuff out there, but you’re getting into a $150 solution there, which is well within the range of getting a good USB/Bluetooth microscope, which will be more powerful but less versatile.
Lotta good reviews of that 100mm macro lens on B&H
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1357296-REG/moment_120_002_new_macro_lens_no.html
I can’t find reviews other than some YouTube videos with sample images, which look good, but this is only $50. I tend to trust anything B&H sells even the cheap stuff is usually legit enough.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1768471-REG/apexel_apl_hb100m_premium_clip_100mm_macro.html
If your budget is around a hundred, you could go with a wireless microscope mounted on a gooseneck mic stand, which is what a lot of people here seem happy with, or get an inexpensive desktop setup like this one:
A random nerd note here: did you know that it’s not very difficult to convert an old digital SLR to an infrared camera? You just remove the anti-aliasing filter over the sensor and you’re left with a sensor extraordinarily sensitive to IR. It’s not quite the same as a dedicated IR camera but that’s a winter project of mine to do with an old Canon D60 and see what I learn looking through it at my grows and my leaky old house.
Edit: damn they even give lens specs, these are pretty legitimate numbers:
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Removing that IR filter is great for astrophotography!
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@BeTheLight That too! I have a set of 20x60 Japanese Tascos from the 80s in mint condition that I need to put on my Manfrotto with a ball head this winter and take it out in the fields, I bet that’s not too hard to adapt. There’s a club around here that does all that stuff and makes their own telescopes too.
I want to take landscapes like this too:
This is a blueberry flower:
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iphone has a lidar scanner also so could probably get a real 3d image of it.
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The problem ultimately ends up being the resolution (more properly, the resolving power) of the lens in the system. Attempts at microscopy through software image enhancement always bump up against this problem, though obviously image stacking for depth of field has been a game changer. But in the end, the lens on a smartphone is not made for that extreme closeup and you’ll be shooting farther away, vs conversion lenses (even a simple single element one) which help that lens work better at what it’s designed for by doing the macro lifting optically. I like the reversed manual 50mm lens from a 35mm camera for this because they’re a very cheap way to get an extremely advanced multi-element optic with excellent resolving power, the “normal” 40-50mm lens on old manual SLR cameras was often one of the sharpest in the collection, especially the upgraded ones that had lower F-stops. A bunch of the sharpest vintage lenses of all time for 35mm cameras are about 35-55mm in focal length and usually max aperture of f1.4-2. There were sharp f2.8s certainly but it’s more of a crapshoot and you have to look them up on collectors forums to know. I tend to like Olympus, Nikon, Minolta, or Pentax manual lenses for this but almost any clean and decent quality one will work better than anything else you’ll find for $20 or less. I get mine at pawn shops or thrift stores in the register case usually. You might even get a functional camera with it!
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Have you seen any image stacking software/gear suitable for amateurs?
The results from that technique are pretty impressive, but from what I’ve read it’s a pretty big hurdle for us civilians to get in the game.
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@GrouchyOldMan It’s mostly in-camera now but I think @zephyr @syzygy and @iamyou_youareme could all address that with more knowledge than me? Maybe @JoeCrowe too from a microscopy angle
The two paid software solutions I’ve looked into a bit are named Helicon Focus and Zerene Stacker but there are probably so many different ones.
This guy gives Zerene the nod in a pretty long review he’s a nature macro photographer:
If you want to get started playing with the idea you can do some stacking in Photoshop Elements:
https://jtunney.com/focus-stacking-with-photoshop-and-elements/
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My Olympus TG6 is a point and shoot camera that has integrated focus stacking (don’t need software) but there are quite a few limitations, including a low limit of # of shots. I think its 6 or something like that. The best use of that camera in my eyes i for checking trichomes handheld, and since you need a tripod to effectively use focus stacking I don’t really use that option much if ever.
My Nikon Z5 does focus stacking but requires software so I haven’t really gotten into it because I didn’t want to pay for a cloud subscription from Adobe. If I ever do mess around with it I’d have to go with one of the options @Dirt_Wizard listed probably.
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There’s a open source one that LD50 uses called Fiji for image stacking.
If you are looking for free scientific imaging software.
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Helicon Focus 8 is probably the most powerful piece of software I’ve used to automate focus stacking.
-Helicon Focus - Helicon Soft
Another hurdle is aligning your images before you stack. The best software I’ve used for this requisite step is Fiji (ImageJ).
-Fiji
Helicon makes an attempt to align (aka register) the stack but doesn’t handle things as well in my experience, so I use these as a 1-2 punch.
All that’s left is to tackle the hardware side to get a usable image sequence and you’re off to the races!
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Duuude!
That’s what I am talkin about, do you have any samples to share of your work with the Helicon Focus program?
Some of the stacking images I’ve seen of Canna Buds have been surreal! I think I’d be willing to drop some serious ducats to gear up to capture that essence.
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-https://images2.imgbox.com/94/1f/DcWQSx1U_o.jpg
-https://images2.imgbox.com/ba/5b/xQE3nOBH_o.jpg
-https://images2.imgbox.com/df/5b/FHF7ntSl_o.jpg
I post everything here:
-Trichome Microscopy 🔬 Harvest Timing Science - #342 by LD50
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Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold on there! Are you saying I can put a jewlers loupe over my iphone camera and it works? 
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