Hair! It's just hair!

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rjlittlefield
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Hair! It's just hair!

Post by rjlittlefield »

I've often wondered what makes the stripes on these beasts.

Now I know. It's just hair -- alternating sections of bare and hairy cuticle!

I leave it to you to figure out what the beast is.

Image

Whoops, that's too hard. Let's make it easier...

Image

Anybody know?

--Rik

Canon Digital Rebel, Olympus 38mm bellows lens at f/4, deep stack at 0.002" focus step.
The second image is full-frame; the first is just a crop of that, reduced to 75% of actual pixels.
Last edited by rjlittlefield on Sat Aug 19, 2006 10:20 am, edited 1 time in total.

Jody Melanson
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Post by Jody Melanson »

Cicada. Cool!
Capturer of God's Creations.

There is a fine line between a hobby and mental illness.

Ken Ramos
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Post by Ken Ramos »

Have to agree with Jody there Rik. It struck me as being a cicada right off, because not to long ago I too photographed one through my stereomicroscope. Nice set of images there Rik, thanks! :D

beetleman
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Post by beetleman »

I would have been wrong with my guess :cry:....... "I think it is a cicada Rik!! :D. Suber job Rik.
Take Nothing but Pictures--Leave Nothing but Footprints.
Doug Breda

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

Aw, man, you guys are just way too good! :D

Yep, cicada.

Here's a wider shot, for those who don't know these beasts so well yet.

Image

Notice that the ocelli look very different in this last shot -- red versus glowing yellow.

That puzzled me for a while. I had to change the lighting, of course. Images in the first post used a pingpong ball diffuser that pretty much enclosed the head. I had to remove the diffuser for this third picture.

My first thought was that in both cases light was mostly coming from the sides, none along the axis of the lens. So the glowing yellow could not (I thought!) be caused by simple retroreflectivity, like a deer's eyes shining in the headlights.

But just now I ran a few experiments with the bug, a flashlight, and a dark room, and I had to change my mind. The ocelli are strongly retroreflective, and I don't see anything else going on -- for example I can't find any other illumination angles that make the ocelli light up. So I guess the diffuser just put enough more light close to the camera axis to show off the effect. Unexpected, and interesting!

--Rik

Digital Rebel with Sigma 105mm macro at 1:1, f/22. Frame width measures 22.5 mm.

Ken Ramos
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Post by Ken Ramos »

Looks pretty awesome there Rik, like the backlighting on this. :D

DaveW
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Post by DaveW »

You should have used the camera in red eye reduction mode Rik! :roll:

Joke!

DaveW

paul
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Post by paul »

A very interesting sequence here, Rik.

As far as eyes are concerned, I was going to raise a point when posting my moth picture recently. That particular shot got the eyes lit up, but on numerous occasions I could not get any response, no matter what angle I tried, sometimes even after I had a shot with red eye (that's night shots through the window, with flash). Not a controlled experiment, admittedly, just that it puzzled me.
paul h

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