If anyone was frustrated at the lack of sample images like me: http://www.opticsinfobase.org/boe/fulltext.cfm?uri=boe-5-5-1...
Droplet lens turns a smartphone into a 160X microscope
11–18 of 18 posts
Re: Droplet lens turns a smartphone into a 160X microscope
#12Looks like the similar Foldscope is more powerful because it can do up to 2000x magnification:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foldscope
Re: Droplet lens turns a smartphone into a 160X microscope
#13Discussion from last week https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7657521
That discussion wasn't very extensive so we won't kill this one as a dupe.
Re: Droplet lens turns a smartphone into a 160X microscope
#14If anyone was frustrated at the lack of sample images like me: http://www.opticsinfobase.org/boe/fulltext.cfm?uri=boe-5-5-1...
And an imgur gallery[1] with the two examples.
Re: Droplet lens turns a smartphone into a 160X microscope
#15This is awesome work. I just want to point out that it's pretty much a marketing lie to say that the lens gives you 160x magnification. Sort of like saying how digital zoom gives you magnification on a camera.
A non-linkbait title would also report the numerical aperture of their microscope. From their paper, it looks like the new lens performs comparably to a research grade 10x 0.25NA objective.
Re: Droplet lens turns a smartphone into a 160X microscope
#16Looks like the similar Foldscope is more powerful because it can do up to 2000x magnification: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foldscope
In terms of magnification, yes, but there are also many other variables that can be relevant, so I guess it's good to have multiple cheap designs to choose from, depending on the goal and circumstances. For example Foldscope seems to be using ball lens, which indeed gives higher magnification, but probably also suffers more from aberration, may be trickier to fix firmly and precisely into the microscope housing compared to the lens that are already created on a flat plate, etc., so for those tasks where lower magnification is sufficient or preferred the droplet lens might sometimes be more suitable.
Re: Droplet lens turns a smartphone into a 160X microscope
#17OK, kind of cool, but would you not be better with a real camera on the end rather than a half arsed phone camera?
I am aware that the lens is usually what makes camera phones poor in comparison to regular cameras, but I still find my phone camera barley usable, and the quality crap compared to my point and shoot camera. I am sure it isn't only down to the lens.
Re: Droplet lens turns a smartphone into a 160X microscope
#18Innovations like these will happen a lot more often once there's a proper hardware platform for this, like ARA is.
What's ARA? Sounds like it might be interesting.