Beginners scope for insect identification?

[rjlittlefield]

Bathcat, I can't help with software for the Amscope camera. But I can suggest some simple changes to contrast etc that will improve your image in postprocessing. May I post an example?

--Rik

[Bathcat]

Of course, go ahead. Any advice you have would be most welcome!

[rjlittlefield]

Here you go. I've done two things here:

1. Levels adjustment to make the darks darker. The original histogram shows no pixels at all below value 57. I've adjusted the levels to use the available 0-255 range more fully. Given the actual color of the beast, I might have gone even farther, but here I've left enough "foot room" to guarantee not hiding any structural detail.

2. Sharpening (via Photoshop's "Unsharp Mask") to bring out detail that was captured but lost some contrast due to blurring in the camera.

As modified:


The original again, for comparison:


Hope this helps!

--Rik

PS. I'm a little puzzled by the label on the beast. I grew up in Okanogan County (Oroville), but the "Soap Lake" that I usually think of is in Grant County. Is this specimen from the little lake north of Brewster?

[Bathcat]

Thank you, Rik! As I was looking at the difference I realized I had a background program called F.lux running while I was viewing and fiddling with the image, it slowly adjusts the tint of all windows to emulate halogen lamps as the sun goes down, based on your lat and long. Supposed to help you go to sleep better, but obviously not good when you're doing color sensitive work.

I will take another few shots tomorrow and see what I can get, will definitely do some searches for post work on the forum here and use Photoshop next time around.

Yes, its the little lake northeast of Brewster. My wife and I go all around Washington looking for ground beetles, and that was one of the spots I had heard Cicindela decemnotata could be found. Didn't see any of them, but we decided that one of the taquerías along 97 there was the best we had had outside of California

[Bathcat]

Small update, taking a picture with my cheapest of the cheap point and shoot digital through the eyepiece and some editing does wonders for making this thing useful for identification purposes. This is pretty much what I wanted: an ability to take a reasonably clear picture, then email it to an expert in the group for taxonomic help if needed.

[rjlittlefield]

Excellent! I'm glad to see that your point and shoot works well in this way. Some cameras vignette too badly, but it's always worth a try to see. Cell phone cameras are another good thing to try. They usually allow placement at the correct point above the eyepiece while deeper cameras may not.

--Rik