Still on my starting road. Got a change to get a few expired butterfly samples. They weren't in great shape, but good enough especially for my first look at these. All with a 20x mitty and my old Minolta 80-200 APO for the tube lens. 6 um steps for each.
First the blue morpho. I read a bit about how this iridescence is created and it's amazing. Scale transparent to red, and then the structured channels seem to only let a blue diffraction band out for any reflectance angle. The fine striations are clearly visible, but not at this image size.
Leopard lacewing:
Cairn's birdwing (I think):
I have a few more up if anyone is interested:
http://lavinia.as.arizona.edu/~swest/butterfly_scales/
In all an informative and fun day.
Steve
butterfly scales
Moderators: rjlittlefield, ChrisR, Chris S., Pau
-
- Posts: 1971
- Joined: Sat Oct 07, 2006 10:16 am
- Location: Bigfork, Montana
- Contact:
-
- Posts: 5090
- Joined: Sun Jan 15, 2012 12:31 pm
-
- Posts: 1971
- Joined: Sat Oct 07, 2006 10:16 am
- Location: Bigfork, Montana
- Contact:
-
- Posts: 1971
- Joined: Sat Oct 07, 2006 10:16 am
- Location: Bigfork, Montana
- Contact:
I couldn't get any configuration with a ring light to work. In the end, just the domed diffuser and a lot of trial and error with 2 FO lights shining on the dome. I found that keeping the lighting aimed low so as to graze over the top of the scales and then the light direction should be along the axis of the scale cylinders.