This is by far the best microscope I have ever owned. Because it's a trinocular, I can use a digital microscope camera and still have both eyepieces free. Trinocs don't have 3D like stereo microscopes because you're still looking through a single lens, but some 3D effect is achieved due to the slight angle differences between the eyes. The optics are top notch. I had shot some movies and taken some pictures with my previous scope, but had to scale them down to not show how poorly this scope performed with my camera. This provides a much clearer picture with the camera. Also, with the previous scope, I had a pretty clear view with my eyes as the human eye is very adaptable, but this scope is significantly better in that regard. I'm not talking about magnification, I'm talking about clarity. As for the magnification, where it says 5000x, that's rather nonsensical. With this type of magnification, too much light in the visible spectrum is unattainable. Still, the lower magnification lenses have enough magnification to reasonably detect bacteria and clearly observe a variety of microbes. Thanks to the improved quality of the optics on this scope, I can see the microbes I used to observe in much more detail. Thanks to the adjustable stage, I can follow them when recording videos. Speaking of the table... This is the first microscope I've had that has a filter bowl under the table. It accepts 32mm round filters. I made my own out of glass and it works great, but I've seen many sets of patch stop filters that would go with it. The screen on the stage is an adjustable sliding screen. My last scope's diaphragm was on a wheel with different sized apertures. This offered short range and the resistance to turning the wheel caused me to lose my subject. With this it is much easier to work. The brightness of the lighting can be adjusted. Power is supplied via a proprietary cable with a barrel connector on one end and USB-A on the other. My previous scope also had a dome light, which was great for opaque subjects, but this model doesn't have that. I was able to use external light sources when viewing opaque objects. The focus knobs on this scope work better than those on my old scope which broke early on and made focusing difficult. The head of the scope is freely rotatable and has a knob for loosening and tightening. The construction is pretty solid. The scope itself is probably 30% larger than my previous scope which makes me feel kind of a kid but the quality of the scope makes me feel like an adult. It gets confusing. I generally only use the first two lenses, 4x and 10x. At 40x I can see a lot more detail, but focusing becomes a lot harder and the field of view becomes extremely narrow. The 100x lens is almost useless except in special situations. It's not marked as such, but I strongly suspect that the 100x lens is an oil lens. Since the 40x and 100x objectives basically press against the carriage, an external light is almost useless with these. Also, you should make sure you use a coverslip when using these lenses. As for the eyepieces, the 10x lenses deliver an incredibly sharp view, but the 50x lenses still work pretty well. But the difference between the 10x and 50x eyepieces doesn't look like a 5x difference. I was looking at things through both lenses at the same time and the objects in the 50x lens didn't appear five times larger than those in the 10x lens. It's not an Amscope or Celestron, but I'm really happy with this microscope. For the price, it's beyond great.