Choosing a Hand Lens for Nature Study

The hand lens on the bottom is a Bausch & Lomb 10x Coddington. The others are inexpensive plastic models.

Hand Lens are small but powerful magnifiers. The magnifiers powerranges from 10 to 20 times.

Other magnifiers consist of plastic or are large glasses which magnify at most 3 or 5 times actual size. They don't always deliver clear sharp images like the Hasting Triplet or Coddington magnifiers.



Choosing a Magnifier

• 3x to 5x - small magnification
• 10x to 14x - good magnification for nature study
• 20x - small diameter for view, you must hold it close to your eye to focus: for specialist uses

• hold the magnifier close to one eye
• move the object close and away from the glass until the image is sharp and clear

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