Hi David - a very simple technique to hold rotifers in place is to put little dabs of vaseline or vacuum grease on the microscope slide to support the coverslip. I use a syringe to apply very small drops of vacuum grease, then place the coverslip on top and draw water out from under the coverslip us...

Thanks for the information that you air dry the solutions on microscope slides. I have tried melting, air drying from different solutions, and evaporation methods with some success. Can you share some the identity of some of the chemicals you are using. I have tested a wide variety of chemicals and ...

Interesting subjects, wish I had an ocean nearby. The darkfield microscopy really compliments the subjects.
Cheers
RB

HI Karl it would be nice if you shared some information about the chemicals you used, are you melting the crystals or making the slides from solutions and allowing them to air dry?

RB

Rotifers are one of my favourite subjects for photomicrography. The turtle rotifer Testudinella patina is particularly interesting and I have been finding lots of them this year. I photograph them using DIC, Darkfield, Bright field, and polarizing microscopy. Below I have attached a few rotifer imag...

I have been collecting at local ponds and even though I am searching more for rotifers, ciliates, hydra etc I manage to collect a few insect larvae as well. The photos below were taken using a Zeiss Axioscope low power objectives 2.5X, 5X and 10X objectives and often I need to make panoramas to get ...

Very nice darkfield images. Sometimes home made solutions are the best.
Cheers
RB

Beautiful detail on the Diatom and all in focus.
Very nice
RB

Nice images of ostracods. I see a lot of them but often leave them. You have don a really nice job of photographing them.
RB

Very beautiful photomicrographs. It would be nice to know what the chemicals were. Also did you make these crystals by melting, or drying solutions on a slide.

Cheers
Rob

Beautiful images thanks for sharing.
RB

Hi Walter I am heading out to collect pond organisms tomorrow morning. I like the photo of P. bursaria with the algae best best.

Nice images
Cheers
RB

Beautiful image lots of detail in the hairs on the midge.
Cheers
RB

Nice to see some SEM images, too bad the scopes cost so much. I have access to one at $100\hr at University of Calgary which is not a bad price. I found the newer scopes won't let me save large files digital files, the older ones used Medium format that permitted big enlargements. I went to grad sch...

Nice photo Marek. I have been looking for different kinds of cyclops but so far only find the Cyclopoida type, I would like to find some Calanoids.

Nice picture.
RB