Playing with a dor beetle aka. praise of focus stacking

[eurythyrea]

Let me show you what happens when an amateur entomologist mind meets the amateur focus stacker mind. The subject is a dor beetle or earth-boring dung beetle (Trypocopris vernalis). I used three lenses for this series: the MP-E 65 macro lens of Canon, the Mitutoyo BD Plan APO 10x microscope objective and the JML 21/3.5 lens. Click each one to see larger!

Ventral view of the first half of the body:

Canon MP-E 65/2.8 @ 2x - lit with two LED lamps, diffused with paper cylinder. 74 shots in PMax.

Dorsal view of the second half of the body:

Canon MP-E 65/2.8 @ 2,5x - lit with two LED lamps, diffused with paper cylinder. 118 shots in PMax.

The left side protibia and protarsus and mesotibia:

JML 21/3.5 @ 5x - 580EXII flash + paper cylinder. 123 shots in PMax.

Top of the left metatibia and first segments of metatarsus:

Mitutoyo BD Plan APO 10x @ 10x - 580EXII flash 3 paper cylinder. 159 shots in 8 parts in PMax.

The left side metatarsus:

Mitutoyo BD Plan APO 10x @ 11x - 580EXII flash 3 paper cylinder. 121 shots in PMax.

Cross your eyes carefully:


Rock baby!


Have a nice weekend!

[seta666]

Wonderfull series!!! framing, lighting... everything is perfect
Love the Dorsal view!!
Regards

[Craig Gerard]

Nikola,

Outstanding detail and lighting!

A lot of work, some fine glass and excellent results. All worth it!



Craig

[rjlittlefield]

Briefly:

These are astonishing (and gratifying!).

I almost hate to ask, but how much time do you spend retouching these?

--Rik

[eurythyrea]

These are astonishing (and gratifying!).
I almost hate to ask, but how much time do you spend retouching these?

Thank you Rik! Yes, I spend most of the time with retouching making a picture like these. It is much more than taking the exposures and stacking them in Zerene. Let's say 3-4 hours per one image.

[Perel]

Great series and great Flickr too. Congratulations.

How do you do the Rolling Image? I would like to learn that, hehe

Thanks

[DrLazer]

wonderful images Nikola

[eurythyrea]

Great series and great Flickr too. Congratulations.

How do you do the Rolling Image? I would like to learn that, hehe

Thanks

Hello Pedro! You can learn it on Zerene Satcker itself. Visit here:

http://www.zerenesystems.com/stacker/do ... Stereo.php

Nikola

[pierre]

Impressive Nikola

[Mitch640]

I see an effect that focus stacking seems to add to the chitin, not just on these shots, but all focus stacked images by anybody, so it's not specific to one person or technique. If you look at the sections in #5 you see they look like they are made of dark amber. I have seen something similar before, and just couldn't put my finger on it.

Now I remember. It looks just like tortoise shell. I once had a real tortoise shell comb, and the material looked just like this chitin. Is chitin and shell made of the same stuff?

[Marpee]

Great images. They are perfect, clean in every detal. How can you obtein that foreground? Thank you.

Congratulations.

Marco

[rjlittlefield]

It looks just like tortoise shell. I once had a real tortoise shell comb, and the material looked just like this chitin. Is chitin and shell made of the same stuff?

Very different chemistry, somewhat similar physical structure and function. I think tortoise shell is mostly keratin, which is a family of proteins -- a bunch of amino acids strung together in a line. Chitin is more like a polysaccharide -- a bunch of modified sugars strung together in a line. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keratin and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitin. But yeah, they both have that "dark amber" appearance you mentioned, due to absorbing quite a bit of light (especially blue) but not scattering very much.

--Rik

[Mitch640]

Very interesting. I learned something useful again.

[Martin G.]

absolutely stunning pictures, thanks for sharing!

[Cyclops]

Fabulous images!