Intel Play QX3 Microscope
We bought our QX3 Microscope in August of 2001 to use on our Great Invertebrate Tour. It was very inexpensive, and produces reasonably good quality photos and videos.We use it with a Compaq Presario laptop, 1Ghz AMD Athlon processor. It connects to the computer via a standard USB port. We also have a Kodak digital camera for still images, which also connects to the computer via USB.
Using a power convertor, it is possible to run it from the car battery, thus making the whole set-up completely portable.
Note - we also have a Panasonic Mini-DV camcorder, some of the invertebrate videos were taken with this.