Wow, beautiful! The stereo makes the shroom-like appendages really pop out of the plane. I wonder what these appendages are useful for ... I understand why people can get addicted to putting diatoms under their scopes! By "chipped" you mean that little dent at the lower edge? C'mon! :wink: The plat...

Thanks for your comments everyone.

Pau, bigger version here. You'll be looking out of your ears if you get too close though

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/534 ... 8c4d_o.jpg

I intended to crow about finally finding a *perfect* example of this species after several years of searching. Not constantly searching, just as and when I got material that contained this species. Every example I found to date (that was more than a broken fragment) had either something missing, a h...

I ordered this one. https://www.mjkzz.de/collections/ultra-series/products/ultra-mini-rail-v2-kit-incl-ir-controller?variant=42408686813429 I have a similar dial gauge to yours, but the 0-100 scale goes right round the dial. Measuring "known thickness" feeler gauges (also checked on a hi-res microme...

For short-lived subjects like fragile flowers, flash is very helpful, to avoid the continuous light source over-heating the subjects and causing them to wilt during a long stack. I had the "clever" idea of using a tiny plastic centrifuge tube as a vase to stand small flowers in, with wet cotton woo...

Main thing is to pick the right kind of sheet. There will be a few layers of "stuff". Sometimes there's a ~2mm thick opaque but transluscent sheet of material - that's not what you want. The diffuser is not much thicker than paper, smooth on one side with a fine frosted texture on the other. If you ...

... But I would only need stronger LEDs for the scales. Assuming you're shining light through the diffuser, then less light-hungry diffusion material could help instead. The sheet(s) of diffuser found inside (broken) flat-screen TVs and computer monitors are very good in this regard - though it's b...

Incidentally, how do you measure off-axis drift? I use several methods, which I will describe in a separate thread. This is now posted at https://www.photomacrography.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=46907 , "Methods to evaluate performance of a focus rail". --Rik Thanks Rik, I did see that and your t...

An excellent video from Anton Petrov. Well worth a look. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd-h_y1X4oA Yes - it's chemical signalling rather than talking, but communication between plants all the same. Anton posts mostly astronomy content. Always about intriguing new discoveries and every day without ...

Ooh, I like the look of that extension! I didn't know Godox offered it. I have two AD200s but lack of space prevents me (easily) using both at once on my rail setup. Those extensions would solve that. Thanks for the heads up.

Cheers
Beats

Hardly surprising that big media outlets use so much AI-generated imagery. They stopped representing reality a looong time ago! I have no beef with AI imagery when used in the right context (e.g. art or entertainment). But in areas that are supposed to be factual, i.e. news, documentaries or things ...

The science would suggest you need to resolve the wavelength of light that is reflected. That would put the blue scales beyond the reach of the TU Plan 50X. Maybe the Papilio blumei, a green species, would acheive the results sought (as the specs indicate the objective can resolve 0.5 μm.) ... Than...

Hi all, After acquiring a Nikon TU 50x/0.8 PlanAPO epi objective (at last) I discovered that the minimum 1µm steps of my rail aren't small enough to get the best from this lens. So, what better "justification" could one wish for to order a new rail that does smaller steps (MJKZZ Ultra Mini 2)? So I ...

Wow, that's a really interesting gizmo, and seemingly an answer to a long term daydream (faster capture of focus brackets), but... At what price? Probably swoon-inducing. The miniscule FoV (with relatively low resolution objectives) makes it significantly less desireable. And 70k frames/sec must sur...

Excellent result. The chunkier detail on the blue scales really lifts the whole image.

I found a long lost box of assorted butterflies today. I got them from a butterfly farm about three years ago and put them away safely. Too bloomin' safely!

Guess what I'll be shooting tomorrow