Rove beetle (Antenna shot added)

lauriek · Post by **lauriek** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 2:45 pm

No not Harry, but I think this is a Rove Beetle, quite a big one, around 1" long...

51 images in stack. Shot with E330, OM Bellows, OM38/2.8 @ f2.8. Stacked in Zerene stacker

Harold Gough · Post by **Harold Gough** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 1:32 am

If it had reddish-brown elytra it could be Staphylinus caesareus. Anyway, a superb picture.

Harold

Aynia · Post by **Aynia** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 1:53 am

Great detail in this!

rovebeetle · Post by **rovebeetle** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 4:03 am

Harold Gough wrote:If it had reddish-brown elytra it could be Staphylinus caesareus. Anyway, a superb picture.

Harold

I agree, it's a superb picture. I do not agree with the ID

, i.e., the genus is correct but the species is Staphylinus dimidiaticornis (S. caesareus has golden pubescence on the postocular region.

Cheers

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 6:56 am

Laurie, what are the little spots all over the eyes? They look like tiny water droplets. Condensation on a cold subject?

--Rik

lauriek · Post by **lauriek** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 7:33 am

Thanks for the kind words all, and thanks Harry for the ID! It's nice to nail one to species level occasionally!

Rik yes that's condensation. I did leave this one for a little while after getting it out of the freezer, and it looked okay in the viewfinder, these spots were only obvious once I'd stacked the images together.

lauriek · Post by **lauriek** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 4:21 pm

Here's one I managed of the antenna, with the Nikon 10x objective at full bellows extension;

34 images stacked in Zerene stacker

DQE · Post by **DQE** » Sat Apr 18, 2009 1:57 pm

Great photos!

Please consider sharing your initial impressions of the Zerene Stacker software. It looks promising based on their web site.

lauriek · Post by **lauriek** » Sat Apr 18, 2009 4:11 pm

I've been very impressed with ZS. I've done quite a few tests running the same images through ZS, CZP and Tufuse pro (I don't have Helicon) and the ZS output has always looked the best to me. Sometimes the other two can come very close but ZS definitely has the edge, particularly on halos, and overlapping details. Also the built in retouching facilities are easy to use..

I did mention it elsewhere but in case you're not aware I was one of the ZS beta testers so I've been using it quite a while now. I don't bother running stacks through the other packages any more, I just run everything through Zerene.