Baltic amber

JH · Post by JH » Fri Jan 02, 2015 4:04 pm

Hi
The summer of 2013 we were in Denmark, there I visited a lot of Amber-shops. I must have looked trough several hundred examples of polished amber with insects. I shoose to buy the few that I thought would be possible to photograph. I still regret that I did not buy one with an ant even though it was not a good subject for photography. This is two examples of what I found.

The fly is cropped, both pictures are jpegs stacked with Zerene Stacker. I have used PS for some dust removal, smart sharpening etc. I did not have the amount of coverslip oil necessary so I submerged the amber in glycerol instead. I used continuous LED light and for these two the Nikon 160/- 4 /0,13 W. The W lens is not necessary, it is possible to take photos through the glycerol surface. I have a 2.5x projection lens before the camera so this is approximately 10x on a FF sensor.

Regards Jörgen

vasselle · Post by **vasselle** » Fri Jan 02, 2015 4:14 pm

Hello
Very nice
Et bonne année 2015 ainsi que de bonnes observations.
Cordialement seb

carlos.uruguay · Post by **carlos.uruguay** » Sat Jan 03, 2015 6:32 am

Very nice

Marek Mis · Post by **Marek Mis** » Sat Jan 03, 2015 7:18 am

Very interesting, especially the first one.

Marek

Fredlab · Post by **Fredlab** » Sat Jan 03, 2015 7:42 am

Excellent works.
Really.

JH · Post by JH » Sat Jan 03, 2015 9:53 am

Hi

Thanks for looking and commenting!

It took some trial and error to get this result, still the quality is far from what I get in air with "normal" subjects. Not sure if I can do better with the gear that I have. The refractive index of amber is supposed to be close to 1.54. I tried with water first. Water works for very shallow parts of the insects, but I could not get "deep" into the amber. Glycerine with a refractive index close to 1.47 took me a little deeper into the amber. I have ordered immersion oil with refractive index 1.51 but I am not sure if there will be a better result.

There are some lenses with long WD and a correction collar for glass-thickness. Is there any one in this formum that have tried those on amber?

Regards Jörgen

Jacek · Post by **Jacek** » Sat Jan 03, 2015 12:14 pm

Very nice

JH · Post by JH » Mon Jan 05, 2015 4:03 am

Thanks Jacek!

myriophyllum · Post by **myriophyllum** » Tue Jan 06, 2015 5:52 pm

Hej Jörgen,

very fine pictures :-)
Glycerine works fine...

Greetings and thanks for showing

Jens

escocat · Post by **escocat** » Wed Jan 07, 2015 6:43 am

Good

JH · Post by JH » Sun Feb 08, 2015 6:22 am

Hi

Thanks myriophyllum and escocat.

Now I have tried with microscope oil. Here are three pictures; water, glycerol and oil. My impression of the glycerol and oil picture is almost the same, at least with the objective, subject and light that I have. Glycerol is cheaper and easier to use - so for now my recommendation is to begin with glycerol.

Finaly another picture of the fly, different light and oil.

Regards Jörgen

Water

Glycerol

Oil

Olympusman · Post by **Olympusman** » Mon Feb 09, 2015 8:15 am

Very nice.

75RR · Post by **75RR** » Mon Feb 09, 2015 3:14 pm

Nice, especially #1 and #6

It took some trial and error to get this result, still the quality is far from what I get in air with "normal" subjects.

I can see that but the fact that they are in Amber and therefore "old" makes them very special.
Any idea how old they might be?