That scope is super easy to use. You just have to get use to it. Its just like any microscope meaning the picture is inverted. Its like some video games where if you want to look up, you point the controller down and vice versa. Well, thats what you do with the microscope. If you want to go up, slide the microscop down, if you want to go left move it right. Also, the clear plastic piece has to be touching what you are looking at. Its a micropscope, not a magnifier. It has to be flush with hwat you are viewing. You need to have it on a table or something sturdy cause its to hard to hold a bud in one head and the scope in the other and try to turn the zoom and focus wheels with one hand. Finally, you need to zoom however close or far off you want to get, then turn the focus til its clear. any time you turn the zoom you have to turn the focus again. Hope this helps cause that scope gives images like you see in any high times magazine or any book or on the net...its super close up and crystal clear. i got the 420scope finally and the only thing different is it feels a little more solid and the light is a cleaner light.