Chris I did read that, it's where I got the specifics about their equipment. I'm considering doing that myself, of course, using my one flash on hand. In any case, the lighting would be the easiest to test, I'd think.

Thanks!

Oh and I remember seeing some of Mr. Kreb's examples he had taken with an El-Nikkor 50mm of a blow flies head, which were remarkable. If someone could link that post (from 2007 if I remember correctly), I'd like to use it as reference for "what can be done" with this particular lens.

Thanks!

Last night I stacked a Megachile bee, with "okay" results: http://38.media.tumblr.com/e673bb56f61bc8c30ec9f67909fee015/tumblr_n7eqlduF7c1rsn4lro1_1280.jpg I am trying to emulate a particular set of photos from a USGS worker that are posted on flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/usgsbiml/sets/72157...

The bulb may have something to do with having recently come out of the pupa, if I remember correctly they inflate that area with fluid to pop the cap of their pupal case, so to speak. The puffy, soft areas between the tergites and stergites point to it being a new emergence (or gravid female), as we...

Bleh! Well, guess I'll return them. I looked into it and it seems that finding or making an adapter that would be safe to put my camera on would probably be more trouble than just returning this and finding another set.

Thanks guys!

On the subject of bellows, I got a Pentax bellows from ebay for a good price, was all excited to get started with it, and quickly found that it has a "back" mount I couldn't recognize: http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/userpix/2576_IMG_9279_1.jpg http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/userpix/257...

Thank you for the encouraging words, guys. Appreciate it!

Rik you hit on the main point of my learning macro photography, which is creating accurate illustrations for taxonomic papers. I realized I hadn't ID'ed this particular fly until after I had finished the photos and put her back in her drawer, and, as a test, tried to ID her from the finished photo w...

This is my first stack that I'm happy enough with to put here, and my eight overall. I'm interested in advice about post production, in terms of the end result: Does anyone think I used too heavy a hand with unsharpen mask, level manipulation, etc? Can post histogram and original later if need be. h...

Thanks Rik, I did watch the video and read some of the keystrokes instructions, it was much simpler than I thought it would be. But it's definitely a matter of memory allocation versus my patience. I realize that in general photo retouching can be a tedious, meticulous process. I think I'll take the...

Seems to me like I remember seeing either here or on a museums flickr/ tumblr that they were shooting insect specimens that were suspended in hand sanitizer, which seems, in theory, like it would greatly help positioning, dust, and glare. I figure that you could remove the bubbles from the stuff wit...

Along the same lines, I have my own question about stacking in ZS with the large TIFFs I generate from PS. Would resizing the lot of them improve processing time, and, more importantly, ease of retouching? I tried retouching in ZS last night and it was sludgy, just impossible to do, due to my comput...

Very nice! You can distinguish between Harpalus and, say, Poecilus by the number of supraorbital setae (Peocilus 2, Harps 1) and presence/ absence of the elytral plica (Peocilus present, Harps absent). edit: that probably is a Harpalus, I was having trouble telling if that second setae on the far si...

Reminds me of certain places I've worked. If they'll just answer with confidence, well, they must be the expert

Stick the bugs on the underside of the balsa wood, so they're submerged below the surface of the acetone. I put headless insect pins in the top of the balsa float to easily pull it back out. And no problem! If I can help a few people with my narrow experience, it's a small trade off for the plethora...