European crane fly, Tipula paludosa

[Charles Krebs]

Insects don't generally "bug" me too much. But this time of year these big, clumsy crane flies get in the house and it is really annoying to have one or two bouncing around in the bedroom as you try to get to sleep.

Nikon D200 with Canon 35mm f2.8 photomacrography lens on bellows.

[rjlittlefield]

Lots of these things around my house this week too. Saw a couple of them mating on the screen door this morning. But none banging around in the sleeping areas, fortunately.

Very nice picture. Stacked, I presume. How deeply?

BTW, did you notice on the eyes, how irregular is the pattern of ommatidia?

--Rik

[jmlphoto]

these things are long gone around here, i only got a few snaps of them before they dissapeared. i love the texture on the skin in this pic! they sure are interesting looking little guys.

[Charles Krebs]

Rik...

Stacked, I presume. How deeply?

BTW, did you notice on the eyes, how irregular is the pattern of ommatidia?

I did. It seems more noticeable in this shot, probably because I used a more contrasty lighting arrangement than I normally do with highly reflective compound eyes. I wanted to show a bit more texture in the body. This shot could have been done with about 35 images in the stack, but because of the two appendages that were at right angles to the body plane ( ) I had to take it out to 99.

I've been going through some old objectives trying to see how they do on bellows, so I decided to take a really close shot (about 20X on sensor) using a small "diffusion" dome. I still like this lighting best for reflective compound eyes. You can still see that the individual facets are somewhat irregular.


Nikon D200 with 20X Nikon U objective on bellows.

[rjlittlefield]

I've been going through some old objectives trying to see how they do on bellows, so I decided to take a really close shot (about 20X on sensor) using a small "diffusion" dome. I still like this lighting best for reflective compound eyes. You can still see that the individual facets are somewhat irregular.

Yes, lovely! Quite sharp in the middle, a bit fuzzy around the edges. If this is full frame, then it's very similar to what I get with objectives on bellows. Thanks for the followup!

BTW, just below dead center in the eye, you think that's the biological equivalent of a "dead pixel"?

--Rik

[Charles Krebs]

The diagonal of the D200 sensor is a bit more than 28mm, and the older microscope objectives were designed to provide a good image circle up to about 20mm diameter. Some will probably be OK more than that, and others may not even be all that great out to 20mm.

So if I were using the D200 on a microscope with these objectives I'd want a relay magnification of about 1.4X. Hmm... that sounds familiar! Maybe I should dust off my Nikon 1.4 teleconverter and see what it does.

[beetleman]

SImply Beautiful Charles....I like that "Dead Pixel" Rik.