Just begining.

[Mo Vaughan]

I have now recieved my camera from the USA.
This is my first attemps so please bear with me. I will be trying all sorts of images in the future but at the moment its honeybees.
I know this is not as good as it should be but that will come with learning the workings of the camera.
The photos were taken at 40X through a trinocular tube.



I guess there will be plenty to talk about with these.
All comments welcome.
All the very best to you all
thebeeman

[Charles Krebs]

Mo... you can see the pollen combs pretty nicely in the top photo. Any thought on why the pollen shot is so red? Did you filter it? If not, it looks like the color balance setting way off or the tungsten illumination was turned down to a very low level.

[Mo Vaughan]

Hi Charles,
Thankyou for your interest.
I initially stained the pollen grains with a ready made mixture of glycerine and Safranine Aqueous 1%. This is to enharnce the pollen structure as untreated pollen grains do not show good deffinition. Yes your right that the colour balence is way off and illumination was turned right down, but if I had not have done that then the frame woud have been so bright it was blinding.
I have a new DCM500 Digital camera which at the moment I am finding out how to obtain the best results from. If any members can shed light on getting the best results please please let me know.
The photo above is a honeybee eye and legs, why its so yellow I do not know. I will eventually find out how to 'stack' I think its called so to show correct depth of detail.
Lets put it this way Charles, I can't get any worse, (famouse last words).
Thankyou all,
Mo.

[Charles Krebs]

Mo,

Your microscope has a "tungsten" bulb. If it is turned up somewhere near it's brightest it should give pretty good color with a camera that is set for "tungsten". If you turn the power down to a low setting, the "color temperature" drops dramatically, and the light will often look extremely red in the photo. If the light is too bright when turned up you can place some sort of neutral density over the light port. Or you can focus and set up the shot at a comfortable brightness setting, then before you take the shot stop looking through the scope and turn the light up to a higher setting and take the shot. If the camera software allows, you might be able to set a lower color temperature than tungsten (3200k). This could help as well.