Hello,
Did a few tests with opteka 10x lens ... the lens is 100mm from the object to shoot.
You can get the pictures here :
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3574941/MacroCorder.zipIn fact the camcorder can shoot 5.1Mpxl still pictures while still sending full hd stream to the HDMI monitor.
The resistors is 0603 package. S1030007.JPG is at max zoom (60x) with opteka x10 lens. This is just insane and not usable to work under.
08 and 09 are 2 shots of one of my boards at reasonnable zoom.
10 shows the focus is still good across a few millimeters, much more than I expected.
11 shows a ruler at max zoom ... yes this is barely more than 2mm, that's (in theory) 2.3mm over 3200 pixels, hence 720 nano meters per pixel ! Say real resolution is about 50x less (checked on the resistor picture, there is less than 50pixels to go from black to white on marking edge), that's still less than 40µm.
I hope with polariod macro lens I can get about 250mm working distance between the object and the lens, and still get at least as much zoom as the Magnus HD zip.
Of course it is not as comfortable as the Magnus HD zip because you miss the remote with zoom and focus control ... zoom is quite easy to change on the camcorder itself, focus is not (it would be on the HC-X920, you have a ring to change focus). But you get the ability to very easily record still pictures or full HD records of what you are doing.
Thomas.