A few years ago I purchased a 60x lens for my phone and it had a "cover" around the lens to diffuse light so it illuminates the subject evenly. While the "cover" allowed to position the lens at a suitable distance from the subject, it was not worth using since it still cast harsh shadows. I was intrigued by how the 100x microscope had a ring light around the lens to illuminate the subject evenly.

As seen by the photos, it did a remarkable job illuminating the subject. These photos turned out quite good for being handheld, rather than having my phone mounted on a tripod. You can even see the reflection of the ring light on the droplets of "dew" at the end of the hairs of the sundew leaf.

The 100mm microscope comes with a nice short cable to recharge the built in battery to the light. It has a slider which slides off the lens and the light turns on automatically. Then, you can slide it back on the lens to turn off the light. It also is designed to work with a phone case on there, at least one of the cases which go up to around level the height of which the phone lenses protrude from the phone. One thing I do however wish it included a clip designed for thinner cases, or that could be tightened on there. Nevertheless, I was still able to take impressively close up shots as seen with the photos I included with this review.