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I'm in the market for one or the other. What are the pros and cons of each? Which do you prefer? Thanks for any input.

Anything using only a single lense will ruin depth perception and generally knacker your eyesight.

go and experiment with some of the ready reader style glasses in boots/poundland. It will reduce your working distance, but produce a larger image size on the retina. you try it first as it will be cheaper

+1.00 should give 1.25x mag
+2.00 shoulg give 1.5x mag
+3.00 should give 1.75 mag

compared to traditional magnifiers. working distances should all be fine for painting models, but try them out in the shop if I were you using some writing on a piece of paper, or an actual model.

would be the cheapest option by a country mile.


A magnifier stand would be good though as its hands free and you could get higher mag powers, and if you can get a good self illuminated one you would be getting a real good view of the detail

Best five bucks I ever spent.

http://www.harborfreight.com/magnifier-head-strap-with-lights-38896.html

My buddy had one and we teased him about being "blind" ...he just handed it to us and we looked at a mini.

There were many sales later that week....

Thanks for the advice guys. I will go for the head-mounted and see see how that works out.

 BlackOps wrote:
Thanks for the advice guys. I will go for the head-mounted and see see how that works out.

Hi there!

Bit of a dead thread but I was searching through the forums for any reviews on the head-mounted magnifiers. Did you end up getting one? How is it? Thanks!

Most the time I work with my naked eye, but from time to time I do like a bit of magnification.

Cheater glasses (cheap reading glasses from pharmacies) workquite well when you only need a little. The focal length is pretty good, and you can still grab things without swinging madly for them.

The big desk mounted magnifying lense is handy too. You can move it around easily and with the attached lights use it as task lighting. If others need to look, they can gather around too.

For really detailed work, I like my watch makers loupes. Multiple levels of magnification, binocular vision...plus it looks cool.

I have an optivsor too, but normally one of the others is better suited to the task.