![]() There was a time when I was much younger in which I remember being able to read the text on a SOT-23 transistor, but sadly even now wearing glasses those days are long past. What’s Your Magnifier Of Choice? A pin-sharp image delivered by Elliot’s optical microscope. While I have seen optics turn these cameras into pretty good microscopes, my setup added nothing more than a phone tripod, and will get you by in a pinch. Have I been carrying a capable magnifier for soldering in my pocket or handbag for years without realising it? I decided to give it a try and it worked okay with a few caveats. I don’t need an archival copy of the image… I just needed a quick magnifying tool. Recently I had some unexpected inspiration when using a smartphone camera as a magnifier to read the writing on a chip. That’s not to say that the zoom can’t be useful. You quickly learn never to zoom on a mobile phone camera because it’s inevitably a digital zoom that simply delivers grainy interpolated pictures. It’s a risky step because phone camera modules and lenses are tiny compared to their higher quality cousins, and sometimes the picture that looks good on the phone screen can look awful in a web browser. I have a semi-decent camera that turns my inept pointing and shooting into passably good images, but sometimes the easiest and quickest way to capture something is to pull out my mobile phone. One aspect of working for Hackaday comes in our regular need to take good quality photographs for publication.
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