Happy New Year

[Fredlab]

Hello

Since 2007 i made with flash an animated greeting card.
(only slide show... i'm not informatician)

This year, my card was made with microphotographic shots.
http://www.phonat.fr/annee/voeux2013.html

Without the forum of "Le Naturaliste" or "photomacrography.net", this card could not be done.
This card is also a thank you to all members who participate in this forum, giving advice without counting.

Enjoy.
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I apologise for my poor english
My blog (Macro Micro World)
My gallery

[Harold Gough]

Thanks very much. Very enjoyable. Some of the suggested indentities of the images are hillarious. (No matter than they are in French. They translate very well!).

Harold
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My images are a medium for sharing some of my experiences: they are not me.

[Chris S.]

Fred, I enjoyed your greeting card, and also your Flickr site. Beautiful work, and with quite a variety of subjects, optical regimes, and lighting approaches.

Your duckweed (Lemna sp.--lentille d'eau) stoma is lovely! It's especially interesting to me as I've been photographing stomata recently, and even had it in mind to try duckweed stomata next. At your Flickr stream, you list "Olympus BH2 + objectif Olympus DApo 40/1,3" as the equipment for this image. Having no knowledge of Olympus objectives, I'm wondering--was this taken with water immersion? (I actually received a book on stomatal physiology for Christmas, which I much appreciate--something that probably marks me as officially weird.)

It was interesting to note on your Flickr stream that you have been using, with good results, a variety of optics as "tube lenses" with Mitutoyo objectives. These include a Besseler Apo 240mm (used in your image of a tick) and a "doublet Surplus Shed (morfanon like)" (used in your image of sporangia). I suspect that some here would be interested in knowing more about this doublet. It would also be interesting to hear your views on the various "tube lenses" you've worked with.

Cheers,

--Chris

[Fredlab]

Hello

Thanks for your messages.

Chris : i'm not microscopy specialist - i spend time to test some optics for finding good objectives.
Olympus DApo 40/1,3 is less expensive than the PlanApo (but i demanded to Santas the dry one - 40/0,95 - he didn't hear me). This lens is the best i have.
I didn't use it in water immersion... only oil (and with diatom, i place oil upon and under the slide). With Protozoa (?), i think immersion is sometime not suitable.

I'm happy to learn the english name of Lemna.
here is a shot taken with an SPlan 10


(real size - here)

for this note

[Chris S.]

Fred, thanks for the additional images. Formidable!

I was shooting my stomata subjects in air, without cover slide, mounting agents such fingernail polish, or immersion, in order to observe them opening and closing as they do in normal function. One surprise to me was that when the stomata opened, they released small jets of gas that moved the leaf to a degree that was untenable at 100x magnification. This was easy to remedy by more firmly securing the leaf, but startled me at first. In retrospect, does not seem so strange.

Your English is not at all horrible, and is quite effective at communicating your work and findings. For my tube lens, I am quite happy with the Mitutoyo MT-1, but you have experimented with some tube lenses that I believe have not been reported on here, so I think your impressions would be of interest to many.

Cheers,

--Chris

[Fredlab]

Hello

[Harold Gough]

[Chris S.]

Harold, in the specimens I photographed, the guard cells of the stomata opened suddenly and dramatically, and there appeared to be substantial back-pressure of gas behind them, which burst forth sharply and in jet-like fashion. This surprised me. Since my observations occurred just prior to our first killing frost, I brought specimens of the plants inside and have them growing under lights to permit winter study--and they are just now reaching a level of vigor where I feel I can work with them again. Hence my interest in furthering my book-learning of stomatal physiology.

It would be grand fun to obtain a high-speed video-camera, hook it to the Bratcam, and record this activity. I've repeatedly seen it with my eyes, but have no proper record of it.

But thinking about it, the guard cells seem to operate based on osmotic pressure. Why shouldn't gaseous pressure accumulate within the leaf structure before osmotic pressure opens the guard cells? (Caveat that I have so far read very little of the stomatal physiology book, and may have significant misconceptions on how stomata operate.)

Cheers,

--Chris

[Harold Gough]

[Fredlab]

Hello