freshwater life

[tony.poole]

This is my first post of photographs I have taken, I will be glad of any criticism or advice.

[tony.poole]

You can tell I'm new to this, the first image is an actinophrys, the second I think is tribonema and the third a pediastrum.

[Cactusdave]

I like that second darkfield image. If you have access to Photoshop or similar it would be worth cleaning up the background and with a bit of sharpening and maybe a tweak in Levels it would make a striking picture.

[Charles Krebs]

Tony,

Overall looks like a very good start.

You may need to double check your white balance settings. The last shot appears to be brightfield, but the background is quite red. If your camera white balance is set for tungsten, the microscope bulb needs to be "running" at its rated voltage or the light will be far too red/yellow. With most of the digital cameras I have used even an "auto" white balance has trouble with many tungsten light sources (especially if running below rated voltage) and will produce results that are too red. If running the bulb at rated voltage (and thus close to 3200 degrees kelvin) makes the view uncomfortably bright you can place some neutral density over the base light port. Or (if your camera provides it) do a custom white balance if the power to the bulb is at a reduced setting. (In this case make note of the power setting and use the same setting when taking pictures with that custom white balance.

Here is a comparison of the last shot with the color "corrected" for proper white balance:
(You asked for feedback but if you prefer not to have a re-posted image like this let me know and I will remove it right away!)



I can't be sure you did not use any filters in the first two images to produce the reddish color... but if not, they appear to also have a strong red/yellow coloration that may not be accurate.

[tony.poole]

Thanks to David and Charles, I appreciate your comments and I will experiment with the balance, that corrected image is a vast improvement on my original.