Pistil said:... The lens unit is one piece so I doubt you could buy a pre-made macro lens. However on 'another' website in the photo forum there is a guy in India who describes various lenses he has jury-rigged from binoculars and such. You seem like the kind of guy who could get into that!
Mary, you are 100% correct, but playing with optics and duct tape would be on my list of things to do "when I have time ... i.e., after I retire in a few years."
I have a huge, rectangular magnifying glass with built-in lights, on a swiveling arm, but during the last move, it went form "clamped onto my kitchen table 100% of the time", to "it's in one of those boxes ... yes, THOSE boxes ... stacked 3-5 high around every wall, mostly filled with books."
I think it had around 10X magnification, great for eyeballing the edge and micro-bevel on knives I was sharpening.
I think if the image will only go to a PC, not a TV, I might look for a cheaper version with USB-only connectivity, not wireless. I've read about "USB microscopes", but not yet of any cheap ones.
I've tried magnifying glasses, but maybe the field of focus is too narrow for me to find it.
A motion-detecting, video-recording "hunter's camera would be great, too. I think USB would be all I needed there, too, unless I was using it to watch my neighbor trespass in real time.
