I'm going to digress a bit but it's all in support of the theme of the thread!
I'm a gadget junkie. When my main hobby was SCUBA diving, I had much more equipment than matched the few hours per year I spent underwater. Similarly, when my main hobby was amateur radio, I had much more equipment than was justified by the time I spent on the air.
Having some awareness of my addiction to gadgets, I've spent my life deliberately avoiding 'taking up' photography - I knew once the camera bug bit me I'd be bankrupt overnight!! I did buy a digital camera (stills) when I set up my eBay account but I'm not 'into' DSLRs and, until now, definitely not 'into' video.
Despite that, I did buy a cheap digital camcorder a couple of years ago to record an outdoor social event and achieved results that were good enough. The camcorder is totally unbranded, no maker's name or model number. It will take either still photos or video and records onto an SD card. It just says 16 MegaPixels.
Now, how does all that relate to the surgical microscope? Well, although I've recorded some of the project with still photos, the aim of the project is to restore the operation of the focus and zoom motions in response to the rockers on the Pedal Unit. Can't show that very well in still photos! So, I thought that when I've developed this thread account a bit more, it would be appropriate to show those motions in a video to illustrate the fruit of the project.
So I set up the camera and a light source before the microscope stand and had a couple of attempts to show the focus and zoom motions in operation. Both takes were very fuzzy and out of focus. I was filming from a couple of feet distance. For the first take, I had the camera set with the 'focus' switch set to the mountains icon and for the second take I set it to the tulip icon. It didn't seem to make much difference to the sharpness of the video image.
If I unscrew the decorative aluminium ring around the lens, there is a male thread of 30 mm diameter. Does that correspond to a standard thread for attachment of filters and/or close-up lenses? Should I be looking for a close-up lens?