Metallic Woodborer: Chrysobothris lilaceous

svalley · Post by **svalley** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 6:42 pm

Buprestid: Chrysobothris lilaceous

Leica MZ16 stereomicroscope w/extended depth of field imaging system

Bruce Williams · Post by **Bruce Williams** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 4:55 am

Hi Steve,

Always spend a long time looking at your pics. Lighting is spot on, bringing out excellent detail (as always).

FYI - On my monitor, this beetle (and your other posting) have a slight magenta cast (although the background is perfectly neutral).

Bruce

beetleman · Post by **beetleman** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 6:27 am

Just keep them coming Steve...I really enjoy everyone of them. Like Bruce said...you just sit there and look at all the fine detail.

svalley · Post by **svalley** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 9:35 am

Thanks, guys.

Bruce, This magenta cast has been plaguing my system for a while now. A few months ago I got a new higher resolution camera and after I had it for a while I was unable to do an auto white balance. I have been manually setting the white balance using a gray card, but I still have a pinkish/reddish/magenta cast that shows up especially in white or light colored setae. It is very frustrating! Leica has replaced the camera with a newer model, but it is so new that the drivers have not been written for it yet by the ImagePro folks. They are promising that I will have them at the end of the month. Meanwhile, I am working on pending projects and trying to adjust colors using photoshop. There always seem to be a series of problems to deal with in photography.

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 12:03 pm

Steve... very imposing face!... and a good job with the stacking.

Until you get the white balance issue sorted out...
(... and you may have tried this already... )

I have had my best luck dealing with this type of problem by selecting everything but the background and then using "Selective Color" adjustment to reduce the magenta component of "whites" and "magenta". If the highlights get too light then add a little "black" to the "whites". There are undoubtedly better ways (as there always seem to be with Photoshop), but this is often very effective and it is fast and easy.

Which model camera is it? What about something like a B+W 486 filter somewhere in the light path?

svalley · Post by **svalley** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 6:32 pm

Charles, thanks for the suggestions (and you can ignore the email I sent you this morning, the log on situation fixed itself). I have used Selective color and I also use Color Mechanic Pro, but I never can seem to correct it all without shifting things toward the green. My camera is a Leica DFC480 that is tethered directly to the computer via firewire. The new one is a Leica DFC420C. There are no slots or easy places to insert a filter on my scope. Hopefully this problem will be resolved by the end of the month. I was disappointed to have these kinds of problems with a $6500 camera. This camera was such an improvement over the old one, which had over 500 hot pixels that had to be fixed in every image. The new one has smaller pixels in a tighter configuration and a wider dynamic range, so I really can pick up finer details. I just wish I could get into the higher magnifications ranges that you are working with.