USB Microscope – Test & Review by Macro Photographer

I have been meaning to start making YouTube videos about affordable photography stuff that I get online.
Finally I published my first one from this series and hopefully I will be going trough the items I have in a chronological order.
Today I am reviewing the USB Microscope that I got for $11.30 including shipping.

Affordable doesn’t always mean good…

I want to say this again – I am reviewing this item as a macro photographer
with 5 years experience creating professional level focus stacked macro & micro photography images !
Of course that means that my review differs from a regular customer’s review GREATLY.

I am not impressed by what I can see – I am not in awe just because I saw something that I have never seen before.
I have seen and photographed many subjects with a proper microscope objective and high magnification lenses,
so what I can see is not what matters to me.

How I see – the quality of the image and footage is what I am far more concerned about.
I have been working with 5 professional level focus stacking macro setups and for me –
it doesn’t make sense to buy something that is a lot worse than what I already own and work with.

As I said in the video – I rather not see something, than see it in low resolution…

If the image / footage is of low quality, not only that I cannot see details but I also cannot work with such images.
I cannot get good results even if I decide do try creating a focus stack – it would be just a waste of time.

Please do not tell me what other people have said about the
USB “microscopes” and how they are able to get better quality results.

Unless at least one of the people involved has somewhat similar experience as me in focus stacking macro photography, or working with high magnification lenses and microscope objectives – what they see and perceive as better quality is irrelevant.
Just as much as my standards of decent quality, are irrelevant to people that are not into macro
– they are not looking for something to work with, they just want to explore stuff.

Featured products ↓

Right now the link from which I bought my USB microscope is not working, so I searched for the most similar item on amazon. Again this may not be identical but it looks the same on the photos and the description matches. I do not Recommend this one ! 

USB Microscope 480p – $19.96 

If still you want to try a USB microscope – please always check the description of the item and make sure that you are getting one that has at least a 1080p resolution, like this one which is 1920x1080p – yes that means 1080p, you look at the lower number of the two.

USB Microscope 1080p – $33.39

On the other hand – if you are serious about macro photography,
you can have a look at my focus stacking macro & micro setups page,
where I share setups that I have been using and they work very well.