All About Pocket Knives

Wow now this is one Christmas gift I am loving. The detail you can get from these hard to read tang stamps.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00WG ... UTF8&psc=1

Very knice outkast! May have get one of those myself.

That's cool, I've gotta have one of those.
Kerry

Hey that's neat. Might have to get one too. I think you started a trend here outkast...

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Mike

And here is one for an amazing $16! 2MP vs. 5MP and on sale for another day only.

http://www.tmart.com/S02-Portable-1X-50 ... AgT48P8HAQ

Dennis

outkast,

I've been looking at the microscopes on Amazon.
Can you take a pic of a entire knife?
I've been looking at ways to take individual pics of all my knives, and its a pain to setup a lightbox, lamps, etc., so it would be great if I could just use this device to take pics of each one.

Thanks!
Keith

outkast, Thank you for making me (and rest of us) aware of this device. I had been looking at a full-on microscope with a 3rd eyepiece for a digital camera. The full-on microscope is waaaaay more expensive than this device and this device actually fits my needs better because all I wanted was a way to capture a magnified digital image. I just got one today as a Christmas present from the wife.

keithw, I doubt you could take a picture of the entire knife. As I have more time to experiment I will post a more thorough review of my experience.

Here is my first picture and it already has proven very interesting. You will note in the picture the tang is double stamped. I had no idea from just picking the knife up and looking at it casually So when I saw the image from the magnifier I thought to myself "great" doesn't work, double exposure blah blah blah. Then much to my surprise when I looked more closely at the knife with my loup, voila sure enough it is double stamped.

I haven't experimented with the settings to learn how to affect magnification etc., but plan to do so over the next few day.

I expect this device to be very handy

Thanks for the post outkast.I bought one also but haven't played with it yet.

Jerry H you pushed me over the edge with that post. Amazing! Just ordered mine. Outkast thanks for the heads up. You should apply for a referral fee from these guys.

Just asked my enabler to order one.

Outcast
thanks for the post.

Which one is the better instrument?

Charlie

Great post, going to look into getting one soon, The eyes are not what they used to be.

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RalphAlsip wrote:outkast, Thank you for making me (and rest of us) aware of this device. I had been looking at a full-on microscope with a 3rd eyepiece for a digital camera. The full-on microscope is waaaaay more expensive than this device and this device actually fits my needs better because all I wanted was a way to capture a magnified digital image. I just got one today as a Christmas present from the wife.

keithw, I doubt you could take a picture of the entire knife. As I have more time to experiment I will post a more thorough review of my experience.

Here is my first picture and it already has proven very interesting. You will note in the picture the tang is double stamped. I had no idea from just picking the knife up and looking at it casually So when I saw the image from the magnifier I thought to myself "great" doesn't work, double exposure blah blah blah. Then much to my surprise when I looked more closely at the knife with my loup, voila sure enough it is double stamped.

I haven't experimented with the settings to learn how to affect magnification etc., but plan to do so over the next few day.

I expect this device to be very handy

Jerry the tang stamp is always difficult to capture In a picture. I was quite excited when I saw your post. I think this little tools going to be invaluable!

I have to imagine the $60 or so for the better microscope will more than pay for itself over the $15 "miser special" (0.8MP? Really?!? ) the very first time you spot something on a knife that demands return or compensation.

As far as I'm concerned, I'd find a million non-knife things to do with it in addition to all the knife things, so it's a no-brainer for me. I'd get the best one I could afford (and in fact may do that this weekend ).

The old adage: "you get what you pay for", is no longer true. For years people said Rough Rider knives had to be junk based on the very low price of $10 or less. But now with a lot of RR useage 'out there' we know that RR knives are at least as good as knives costing 5x as much.
On the tactical side the same is true for SanRenMu knives.
Mass production, marketing & pricing have all become complicated enough that there is no longer a reliable linear relationship between how much you pay and quality of what you get. I think the most reliable pre purchase assessment comes from the recommendation by other users
The 'specs' are separate from quality and a 0.3 mp camera is too weak to give good enlargement detail, so i would not buy that one.
Jerry, i am not clear on which microscope you are using ? Was it the 0.3 mp camera that took the picture of the Case XX tang stamp ?
kj

I have a collection of microscopes. but I have come down to mostly this set up. clamp lights by Life Gear. $4.99 at my local big store. L G camera phone.

Nikon 775 digital on a stereo scope. adapter just cut up pill bottles to proper height above the eye piece. image of a tiny hole in a piece of a broken one inch pebble I found across the road from my house.

I should add that the images are raw or unedited for color just cropped when needed. I do not care about shadows on the table I need full spectrum color, and to flood the inside of any openings. the newest and inexpensive LED flash lights with a single LED are fitting my needs. the lamp on the table when needed is by OTTLITE. you could reduce a little light by placing artist VELLUM in front of the light. nice thing about the cell phone is that it automatically sends the pictures too my desk top an tablet by WiFi. for a $99 cell phone I am very impressed of the camera feature. I also found that I can say cheese and it takes it which is very handy if my wife does not say What?

kootenay joe wrote: Jerry, i am not clear on which microscope you are using ? Was it the 0.3 mp camera that took the picture of the Case XX tang stamp ?
kj

Roland, I am using the ~$60 instrument that outkast referred us to: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00WG ... UTF8&psc=1

Now I'm really confused!!!

I think I will stick with the first post.
Thanks "outkast"

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00WG ... UTF8&psc=1

I ordered one and just received it. This is a really neat tool for the knife collector.

Your computer monitor is part of this microscope system. Is it the 'limiting' feature ? i.e. if camera is 2mp can the computer monitor show this resolution ? How about if camera is 10mp ?
And, are all computer monitors/software able to give the same degree of resolution ?
With a regular microscope the image goes directly to your eye. With this set up the image goes to your computer software then to the monitor and then to your eye.
I am trying to learn how the computer sotfware/hardware and monitor screen might affect the image you see.
I use a 13 yr old computer with MS Windows XP 2002 version.
kj

I would guess that the raw image generated by a microscope or other USB optical device would be written to the computer independently of any video settings your machine can handle. You might open it and need to zoom out to see the whole thing on a lower-resolution monitor, perhaps, but I can't imagine many scenarios in which your computer's video capabilities would impact the data captured by the microscope.

I would hope most of these devices work similarly to digital cameras: Optics -> processor -> image file generated, either internally or externally.

I got mine today and got it set up. Looks like it's going to be a handy dandy tool from the knife collectors.