Philippine Curculionid

[booter]

More experimentation with Zerene and stacking. This is Pachyrrynchus gloriosus from The Philippines with a reversed 60 2.8 f8 polarized lens and flashes stack of 50. Still need work but making some progress.



Scott

[rjlittlefield]

The cover of Science News this week is covered with various Pachyrrhynchus specimens. I don't see this exact species, but there are several with similar patterns. Of course the image here shows a lot more detail.

Scott, if you have some way to do it, I'd be interested to see a closer view of those turquoise spots.

--Rik

[booter]

Rik,

I've got a 28/3.5 I can reverse, a 45/4 Apo-Componon and a 55/3.5 Micro headed this way over the next week. Let me see what I can do, my stacking movement is limited by trying to manage slight turns on the bellows rail. I think a Velmex unislide will help!

I really tried to capture the burgundy color of the beetle but did not quite get it.

Scott

[rjlittlefield]

Cool! I eagerly await more detail.

I see a little bit of the burgundy color, but only in a chevron-shaped pattern at the left end of the elytra. I can't tell why it is restricted to that area.

What you might need to do is set up a much more enveloping "light tent" with a little hole for the lens to look through, then either bounce light inside the tent or diffuse it through from outside.

You won't be able to cross-polarize in this case, but you won't need to either because there won't be any super-bright specular reflections to blow out.

--Rik

[booter]

Rik,
Here is about 6x of P. gloriosus with the reversed 28/3.5. I'm not thrilled as I believe I have exceeded my tripod stability and bellows focus rack capability.


I also was working on another weevil, Pachyrrhunchus orbifer first image is with the 60 reversed, the second again with the 28 at about 5x. Again, the higher magnification stacks are not as sharp and it is not the software it is the operator limitations!




I'll keep wotking at it and I am really enjoying learning Zerene. If you want the high res images let me know and I can e-mail them to you for examination.

Scott

[rjlittlefield]

With the reversed 28, be sure to run a test series to see what aperture gives the sharpest image. That might be wide open, but it's more likely a stop or two down, maybe three.

The blurriness of this image doesn't look like a motion problem -- no elliptical highlights. Flash usually freezes vibration at these magnifications on tripod. And I'm not seeing focus banding, so I think whatever you've been doing with your focus rack is OK.

In these pictures, I'm getting the idea that each of those colored spots is a small bump with some finer structure inside of it. Does that agree with your impression?

--Rik

[booter]

Rik,

Yes, all these are in small depressions (I have forgotten the exact term and am too lazy to dig out my entomological dictionary!). I will try to do some others at an angle where this is more easily seen.

I had the 28 stopped down to f11, probably too far and will need to do some tests on it, I just got it the other day. I would not be surprised to see that f5.6 or 8 are better at this reproduction rate.

This group of weevils has incredible diversity from island to island. I have a good contact where I have obtained a number of really spectacular specimens, many will eventually be put up here.

Thanks for the input an encouragement, I'm having a blast with this.

Scott

[booter]

Using the tip on the light tent, this gives a bit more of the true colors of this weevil.


Scott