10x loupe: How to hold and focus without dropping your stone. The loupe should be held right next to your eye, rather than moving in front of the stone. So, hold the loupe close to the bottom of your eye-brow, hold that hand very still and move the stone towards the loupe with the other hand.
Begin with a large, inexpensive specimen. Place both elbows on a table, rest the specimen in your gemstone tweezers, and place a white observation tray under the table. While looking through the loupe, bring the stone toward your eye. Stop when the surface comes into focus. You only need to move the stone a few mm at a time since the focus range is narrow.
If you try to hold the loupe further away, you’ll get a blurry picture and your arm will get tired. A second challenge occurs when you are trying to hold both hands up in mid-air. It’s hard to see anything, especially if the movements are small. Moving the table, crown or girdle out of sight happens easily. Joining the hands can help: Bring your two fingers holding the tweezers up to the hand holding the loupe. This stabilizes the setup but does not require that you hold the stone against the loupe.
Before looking inside the stone, inspect the surface. First focus on a facet junction, chip, abrasion, or polish line. Then turn the stone a little, keeping the feature in sight. Once you have a clear surface, move the stone a bit to look at any inclusions or fractures. This helps prevent confusion between dust, reflections, surface scratches, and internal features.
The lighting can also affect how well you can control the loupe. Position a neutral daylight lamp to the side or slightly behind the stone, rather than directly in your face. Turn the specimen so light can come in through the crown or pavilion and illuminate the feature you want to observe. Don’t squeeze the tweezers too tight; otherwise the stone will move or fall out of sight when you turn it.
A stable view with the loupe is controlled, not fast. You should be able to find one facet, hold it in focus, turn the stone, and come back to the same place without having to scan the whole specimen. Once you’ve mastered this routine, try it with smaller cut stones and note if the feature is on the surface, reaches the surface, or is completely internal.
