- iMicro Q3p is a fingertip-sized microscope lens
- Attaches to your smartphone camera for 1200x magnification
- It's now available to back on Kickstarter for as little as CA$55
Fitting a microscope in your pocket is generally a bit of a challenge, unless that microscope is the iMicro Q3p. The latest in a six-year line of fingertip microscopes funded on Kickstarter, the Q3p is a tiny lens that attaches to your smartphone’s camera, putting pro-grade magnification in your pocket.
Like the iMicro Q3 announced late last year, the Q3p is powerful enough to view objects at a sub-micron level – or less than one micron. For reference, the average human hair measures 70 microns, while a red blood cell measures eight. That makes the Q3p an incredibly powerful optical tool.
By combining optical magnification with the digital magnification of your smartphone’s display, it’s also capable of rendering objects at up to 1200x their actual size. That’s significantly more than you can achieve with one of the best macro lenses, or with the 40x microscopic sensor on the Realme GT 2 Pro.
What the Q3p crucially gains this time is a polarizer. As with the Q2p before it, this enhances the contrast and color of images viewed through it. It’s particularly effective when it comes to viewing the structures of crystals and minerals. Because these materials are birefringent, their visual properties depend on the direction that light travels across them. The polarizer lets you adjust for this.
By adding a low-profile polarizer to the most powerful iMicro to date, the Q3p becomes an even more versatile piece of imaging kit. Remarkably, it measures just half an inch, weighs less than 0.5g and costs just CA$55 (around $39 / £31) to back on Kickstarter. That makes it orders of magnitude more portable and less expensive than a professional desktop microscope.
Look closer
The applications for a fingertip microscope are many and various. From science classes to industrial settings, the ability to view and measure high-resolution polarized images at 1200x magnification has educational, research and commercial potential. The ability to do so with minimal expenditure – and using the smartphone that’s already in your pocket – democratizes that potential.
Like the original iMicro that launched back in 2018, the Q3p sticks to your smartphone using thousands of nano-sized suction cups, which act like a gecko’s foot. This means it can attach any of the best camera phones, regardless of make or model, without the need for additional mounts or casings. It can also be removed and reused, without leaving any residue, allowing multiple users to share the same Q3p lens.
Also available with the Q3p is a focusing stand. Created based on the feedback of previous backers, the stand offers more granular control when focusing on objects at high levels of magnification. It’s cleverly stored together with the Q3p in a tidy, card-sized package, making it properly portable and genuinely useful.
So, too, is the inclusion of a stage micrometer in the kit, which allows users to take accurate scale measurements of magnified objects when calibrated with the i-Seeing app. While it might not replace the desktop microscopes found in professional laboratories, with their high-end optics and precision controls, the Q3p unlocks similar performance at a much lower price point, with a form factor that’s a lot more convenient.
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