Digital Blue QX5 Digial Microscope
by Digital Blue
Our Price: $349.99
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $175.00 (click here)
Category: CE
See more product details
Customers in the UK,
buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Photo Product Details
Manufacturer: Digital BlueAudio: English (Original Language)
Platform: Windows 2000, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT, Windows XP
Model: DB12011
Product features:
- Includes specimen jars, sample slide tweezers, eye dropper, slide clip, software CD-ROM, USB cable, microscope stand and microscope
- Video playback 15 frames per second
- Magnification 10X, 60X, 200X
- Resolution VGA 640 x 480, twin super bright LED light source
- Portable and easy to use in both stationary and "handheld" modes
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Digital Blue QX5 Digial Microscope
Customer Review: excellent piece of kit
Summary: 5 Stars
The Qx5 microscope is the natural follow-on from the Qx3. Used as a toy with the "child friendly" supplied software, it will load onto the latest machines; difficulties with the old Qx3 software on Windows XP Pro were not encountered with the Qx5. I have found this software to be intensely irritating for my use, but letting my two young nephews loose on my computer I was delighted to find that the whizzes, zips and boings the program generates during its natural operation freed me to be elsewhere in the house without fear that my young guests had given up on the microscope and were trying to sabotage my machine in ways available only to the very young. Not that I need have feared: a simple walk around the local park produced more than enough samples to keep them delighted until dinner. An excellent Christmas game can also be knocked out with the Qx5 and a laptop by wandering around the house, taking magnified snaps of the decorations and furniture, then challenging guests to identify the objects. (Print thumbnails and you can have a dozen people wandering around different parts of the house peering at ornaments.)
However, I have not bought two new Qx5s to supplement the Qx3s I already have just to play games. These `toys' are truly excellent scientific instruments. They allow for rapid inspection of small components, provide good images for presentations, and an image of a graticule can be used to calibrate distance per pixel, providing simple distance and area measurement. These images can be fed to image-processing packages for colour-dependent area measurements and other techniques. Contact angles of droplets on surfaces can also be measured from these images, with the 60x magnification matching the best droplet size. The improved pixel count of the Qx5 gives markedly better resolution of crystal morphology and the more intense LED illumination at last makes 200x magnification generally workable. The rectangular grid of pixels on the old Qx3 has been corrected to a square grid meaning circles are now the same number of pixels across as they are high (rather than 10% fatter). They can be used to monitor and record movement because they collect movies as well as stills: with 15 frames per second (up from the Qx3's five) much faster events can be captured.
So what are the downsides? This is a souped-up Qx3, with a better webcam at one end and brighter light at the other, so in common with the Qx3 the optics are not perfectly matched. The focal plane for each magnification is therefore in a different position requiring re-focusing after every change, as well as producing occasional microscopes with one of their focal planes squeezed quite close to the microscope body. This can mean the plastic stand is at the limit of its movement and bouncing on the last tooth of the cog, or if you've built your own holder you may start bumping into the plastic shield around the light. The TWAIN driver is new, and has no light control, and there is no utility offered to control light separately from your Start Menu. It captures images on command, but then you have to select the image to pass it on to your graphics package - an unnecessary extra step for most applications. The automatic colour balance bleaches images of predominantly one colour, and with the bluish LED illumination, yellow seems to come off particularly badly. This is not true with the interface that opens for capturing movies, where all sorts of settings can come under the operator's control, but the driver (at least in XP Pro) is a Windows Driver Model (WDM) rather than Video For Windows (VFW), limiting your options to only more recent software, and the light is still not accessible.
Generally, however, I'm delighted with the improvements in image resolution and frames per second that the new camera and light offer, and for a price that seems lower than the Qx3 commanded until the very end of its commercial life, these `toys' are extremely good value for anyone who wants to peer at small things through the eye of the twenty-first century.
Description of Digital Blue QX5 Digial Microscope
Get children to play the smart way with the Digital Blue series QX5 USB Computer Microscope. The QX5 magnifies anything from 10x all the way to 200x, and kids can use this microscope to view their favorite goodies - ants, bees wings, their school lunch...Well, they can use this to examine just about anything their little hearts desire! The QX5 is not only a microscope though, it also serves as a multi-function digital camera for taking digital still images and creating time-lapse movies. The QX5 also includes photo manipulation software that allows them to create and experiment with special effects and audio effects, which can all be inserted into the same images taken with the QX5. The QX5 microscope is a great toy for any child with an imagination, and will keep them happy for a long time to come! New Upgraded Model (from QX3) Now Featuring: Super-brite LED lighting for brighter, longer lasting top and bottom illumination, higher resolution 640x480 for more detailed images, video playback now three times faster at 15 frames per second, sample measurement tools built into the software.Microscopes
Digital Cameras and Photo Categories
Bestsellers in Microscopes
1600x PROFESSIONAL Trinocular Biological MicroscopeVariscope; Digital Camera
Price in other shops:
Luxo Magnifier WAVE+PLUS 3.5d 30" Arm Clamp-On Base LtGrayLUXO LAMP CORP; Tools
Best price: $370.00
Konus Crystal Pro Microscope with Geared Table StandKonus; Digital Camera
Best price: $599.99
Konus College 600x Monocular Biological Microscope 5302Konus; Digital Camera
Best price: $94.95
UNICO Trinocular WF10X 4X, 10X, 40XR G383SPUNICO; Digital Camera
Best price: $865.49
Luxo Magnifier WAVE+PLUS ESD 30" Arm Clamp-On Base BlkLUXO LAMP CORP; Tools
Best price: $550.00
OC White Magnifier Vision- Lite 3 Diopt Full Spectrum Clp DnOC WHITE; Tools
Best price: $459.00
Celestron Dissecting MicroscopeCelestron; Digital Camera
Price in other shops:
Tasco 150x-450x-675x Dome MicroscopeTasco; Digital Camera
Price in other shops:
Meade 9460 MicroscopeMeade; Digital Camera
Price in other shops:
Similar digital cameras and accessories
Greg's Microscope (I Can Read Book 3)by Millicent E. Selsam
HarperCollins; Published: 1990-09-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.00
Price in other shops:
Celestron 44412 Prepared Microscope Slides (100-Piece Set)Celestron; Digital Camera
Best price: $71.14
Price in other shops:
Elenco 12 Slide With 36 Assorted SpecimensElenco; Elenco; Toy
Best price: $10.00
Price in other shops:
The World of the Microscope (Science and Experiments)by Chris Oxlade, Corinne Stockley
Usborne; Usborne Pub Ltd; Published: 2008-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.93
Price in other shops:
72 Blank Microscope Slides and 100 Square Cover GlassChang Bioscience; CB; Chang Bioscience; BISS
Best price: $5.99
Elenco Slide Making KitElenco; Elenco; Elenco; Toy; Hobby
Best price: $12.65
Price in other shops:
A World in a Drop of Water: Exploring with a Microscope (Dover Children's Science Books)by Alvin Silverstein, Virginia Silverstein
Dover Publications; Published: 1998-08-13; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.99
Price in other shops:
Jorgensen Laboratories, Inc- J-335 Microscope SlidesJolly Pets; Jolly Pets; Jolly Pets; BISS
Best price: $5.75
Price in other shops:
Learning Resources Prepared Slides Combination Set (Pack of 12 Slides)Learning Resources; Learning Resources; Toy
Best price: $14.61
Price in other shops:
The Usborne Complete Book of the Microscope: Internet-Linkedby Kirsteen Rogers
Aladdin; Educational Development Corp.; Published: 2006; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.89
Price in other shops: