Robber fly with Zerene Stacker

[Eric F]

Yesterday I received the Mac version of ZS from Rik (many thanks for this really great program!), so wanted to show some results. This is the head of a small Costa Rican robber fly, Oidardis sp. (scale bar is 0.5mm). It is a male, and those unusual looking bristles on its face are used during courtship (the female face has simple bristles). Photo is from a stack of 60 (each 0.025mm) with a Zuiko 20mm f/2 at 190mm extension; B & L fiber optic/ flash with 1/2 ping pong ball diffuser. PMax used (10 min. run on my iMac), with a little retouching done on main bristles (which were partly overwhelmed by eyes). Image slightly cropped vertically.





Eric

[rjlittlefield]

Eric, this looks very good. Your illumination system is working well.

Of course I am happy to see results from the Mac version of Zerene Stacker, and I'm particularly happy to see that you're putting the retouching tools to good use. I can imagine what those bristles looked like before retouching -- pretty transparent!

In addition to those interesting bristles, I am intrigued by the range of sizes of ommatidia in those eyes. It looks like the ones on the fronts of the eyes are much larger. Is this also different between the males and females?

--Rik

[Eric F]

Thanks Rik. I really do like Zerene Stacker -- certainly the best program out there for the Mac! Those big bristles were rather transparent, but they held up much better than a comparison stack I ran with HF (4.03 - for Mac). Overall, there were a number of positive factors that give the edge to ZS compared to HF.

The ommatidia of males and females seems about the same in these flies. There is greater size variation of ommatidia amongst genera and tribes of robber flies; probably due to prey-searching behavior differences. That shiny-black bump on the face is also a male character of this fly (female face is smooth).

I've done some more experimenting with the B & L fiber/ flash; will put up some photos soon.

Eric