Opinions needed: Anybody every used a QX5 Microscope for coins

Saw a QX5 Microsope advertised and wondered how good it might be for
photographing coins (primarily for sale on eBay). Has anybody used this
microscope for this purpose. If so, is it easily used with a coin in a
slab?

"Son of the Beach" wrote in message
ups.com...
Saw a QX5 Microsope advertised and wondered how good it might be for
photographing coins (primarily for sale on eBay). Has anybody used this
microscope for this purpose. If so, is it easily used with a coin in a
slab?


It won't work for eBay or slabbed coins. In fact, it is good for close up
images of just parts of the coin and not much else (best used to image
doubling or similar). I think that a dime can be entirely imaged on the
lowest setting ( 10X ) and anything bigger than a dime can not be imaged in
entirety with the scope attached to the stand.

Bill

On 31 Jul 2005 13:02:40 -0700, "Son of the Beach"
wrote:

Saw a QX5 Microsope advertised and wondered how good it might be for
photographing coins (primarily for sale on eBay). Has anybody used this
microscope for this purpose. If so, is it easily used with a coin in a
slab?

In a word, no. It's great for taking pictures of some small portion of
a coin but it can not image an entire coin, let alone one in a slab.
If you are selling an overdate or something like that, use a regular
digital camera for the overall photo and the microscope for the
overdate or whatever. That works pretty well.
Cliff

If you have a raw coin and you can work with the onboard light ok, it
can be helpful. It is almost useless on a slab. The hood jams into
the plastic before it reaches focus. Still for raw coins, it is fine
for checking details for attributions and checking for alterations. It
distorts the colors, rendering them inappropriate for serious
presentations. Not sure of my model (QX3?), but 200x isn't terribly
useful in terms of quality. It's still a neat toy but of limited
serious utility.

My preference is a good optical 2400dpi scanner. Digital cameras are
better but often not convenient. You can get fairly decent results
from a good scanner. You do need to keep in mind how the scanner works
though. There are situations where it makes sense to scan a coin at 90
or 180 degrees and use software to rectify the rotation, if you are
trying to show a particular feature. The way the lighting element
traverses the scan can obscure things at times depending on the
orientation. I scan at very high resolution and take crops of feature
from there usually. Like with cameras, you might also need to worry
about white balance and correct for it with a background. Also the
scanning software needs to be configured correctly. (Don't scan a dime
as line art for instance.)

"Son of the Beach" wrote in message
ups.com...
Saw a QX5 Microsope advertised and wondered how good it might be for
photographing coins (primarily for sale on eBay). Has anybody used this
microscope for this purpose. If so, is it easily used with a coin in a
slab?


I remember a very lengthy thread a few months ago regarding this instrument.
Maybe Larry Louks is about. He has one and has posted some pix he took with
it. Larry?

James

"Cliff" wrote in message
...
On 31 Jul 2005 13:02:40 -0700, "Son of the Beach"
wrote:

Saw a QX5 Microsope advertised and wondered how good it might be for
photographing coins (primarily for sale on eBay). Has anybody used this
microscope for this purpose. If so, is it easily used with a coin in a
slab?

In a word, no. It's great for taking pictures of some small portion of
a coin but it can not image an entire coin, let alone one in a slab.
If you are selling an overdate or something like that, use a regular
digital camera for the overall photo and the microscope for the
overdate or whatever. That works pretty well.
Cliff

I would agree with Cliff. I bought one a year or so ago with a gift
certificate. Only three mag options. The objective lens is so close to the
coin that it's hard to fully illuminate the coin. Impossible to capture a
coin's true surface color. It's a neat toy and I've made a few decent high-mag
images with it, but I haven't used it for quite a while.

For Ebay purposes, a digital camera or scanner will do much better, IMO.

Bruce

Bruce Remick wrote:

I would agree with Cliff. I bought one a year or so ago with a gift
certificate. Only three mag options. The objective lens is so close to the
coin that it's hard to fully illuminate the coin. Impossible to capture a
coin's true surface color. It's a neat toy and I've made a few decent high-mag
images with it, but I haven't used it for quite a while.

For Ebay purposes, a digital camera or scanner will do much better, IMO.

Bruce

Agreed.

However, there is an alternative for someone who needs the type of
images that the QX5 can produce, but needs better quality and has a
bigger budget.

In the most recent ANA MoneyMarket catalog you will find the FlexCam
Video Camera. This is a quality USB video camera that couples to either
of the stereo microscopes that the ANA sells. It comes with two
different sized couplers and imaging software.

The ANA doesn't currently have it at their website but here is another
site:
http://www.venturaes.com/index_new.a....com/clearone/

The ANA sells it for $350 alone or for $325 with an oreder for one of
their microscopes.

I also have one, and it does work fine for close-ups of doubling, etc., but
it is not very good for imaging an entire coin.

I posted an image of my 1958 D/D Lincoln over at
alt.binaries.pictures.numismatic that I took with my microscope.

On a technical note, the discussion by Intel of how they developed the
microscope is pretty cool -- a lot of technical hurdles to make something
work with power only from the USB port.

-- Chris


"James Higby" heezerbumfrool[at]hotmail[dot]com wrote in message
...

"Son of the Beach" wrote in message
ups.com...
Saw a QX5 Microsope advertised and wondered how good it might be for
photographing coins (primarily for sale on eBay). Has anybody used this
microscope for this purpose. If so, is it easily used with a coin in a
slab?


I remember a very lengthy thread a few months ago regarding this
instrument. Maybe Larry Louks is about. He has one and has posted some
pix he took with it. Larry?

James