First of all, I must apologize to all the people who read my previous, useless reviews. I will try harder to stick to the topic and provide detailed information that will help you all. Anyway, to business. The Bionicam. Yes, it is great, a wonderful magnifying toy that helped me identify what might be two lunar meteorites, according to a meteoricist friend of mine. But, it is a finnicky, fickle toy that is very sensitive. I would not recommend this toy unless you have a neurosurgeons steady hands, because it shows every movement your gripping hand makes, down to the pulse of blood through your veins. The IRIS is also difficult to focus and requires lots of trial and error to get the right focus for each individual object you are magnifying. If this sounds more like work than fun, you might be right, and would probably do better in not getting this. For someone who seriously needs a photographic microscope with video capability, this is, I repeat, not a photographic microscope with video capability. This is a high magnification toy with photographic and video capabilities. If you are someone like me, who needed a microscope that could take pictures, upload them to a computer, and do whatever you want with those pictures, this toy is a little too much work, and too little reward. BUT! If you are like everyone else who has a casual interest in the world around you up close and personal, and want to take pictures of flies and beetles, carpets and upholstery, fabrics, hairs, fibers, flowers, plants, animals, inorganic materials, etc. and show the world your findings, than this is perfect for you! Oh, and a few tips. Be prepared to buy truckloads of AA batteries for this product. Keep the focusing disk, you will need it. Try using a fixed platform vise to hold the Bionicams handle, (not too hard on the handle, its only cheap plastic, after all!), and a portable vise for the object being viewed. Try viewing plants, they are really cool up close. And be prepared to spend hours trying to get the perfect photo or video, if you so choose. Be patient with it, it is not a perfect toy, after all. Try setting the lighting to low on the menu screen, if you are viewing a crystalline substance, as it reflects badly when the lighting is on high or medium. And, most importantly, not to sound lame or anything, but have fun with it. Hope this helps.
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For the price, a really neat item
I bought this for my 5-year-old granddaughter. It's probably a little advanced for her age, but I think this will be a fun activity for her to pursue with Grandpa's help.Once it was focused in, anything that you place the surface of the "eye" against comes into clear focus. The white LEDs work best at lower magnification. One negative I can see is that it takes 5 AA batteries - this is an unusual number and will make it inconvenient to try to run it off of rechargeable batteries since you usually charge 2 or 4 at a time, not 5.
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