These shots are some Creeping Charlie flower parts and pollen. We've had this stuff growing in the yard for years, and it has these nice little flowers on it every year. Small eneough to look at them with the microscope.
1. This is one of the antheres, broken open to release the pollen.
2. Some pollen grains at about 300x.
3. Pollen grains and the anther at about 180x.
4. Pollen at 180x.
5. And the anther, stamen and some pollen inside the flower. Magnified about 40x. The column behind and to the right is the pistal, with the stigma on the top end.
There's something odd about the magnification numbers. Image #2 says 300x and image #3 says 180x, but the pollen grains in #2 measure about 4 times larger than in #3. #4 says 180x also, but the pollen there is 2 times larger than in #3.
Because of the 1:2:4 ratio and the approximate size of the anthers and pollen, I'm wondering if these were maybe shot with 10X, 20X, and 40X objectives?
Thanks Rik. Yes, they were shot at different magnifications, but I have never figured out how to add it all up. They are all full frame on the T1i, but #1 and 3 are using the 10x objective, #5 is a 4x, #2 is 40x and I think #4 is 20x.
Why the colors are so different, I don't know, cause the flower petals are all blue. I was also having some problems with the flash, so ended up using the Halogen light from the lamphouse.
Perhaps your camera is set on auto white balance (AWB)? Sometimes AWB will make strange decisions when everything in the scene is strongly colored. It's more reliable to use either an appropriate preset (e.g. "tungsten"), or even better, set custom white balance from a blank slide.
I think it was set to Custom, but should have been set to Flash. The whole camera and flash was acting strange yesterday.
I am usually able, in Tv Mode, to set the shutter to 1/200 and the ISO to 100, then set the flash in Manual to 1/128. When I then crank up the halogen voltage to just below the red line, I can see everything very well, well enough to focus using EOS Utility.
To use the flash though, on the Fluophot, I have moved the Halogen lamphouse to the top opening, where the Mercury Vapor lamphouse usually is, then put the flash up to the hole in the rear of the base, where the Halogen lamphouse normally sits. After fine focus, using the 200x window, I then have to turn a mirror knob to open the light path to the flash, then hurry up and set one of the ND filters and then hit the shutter button in EOS utility. Obviously, I can not take shots of anything that moves faster than an arthritic amoeba, but I have gotten use to it and pretty much know what filter to use for most of the objects I shoot.
But yesterday, none of the usual lighting patterns wanted to work right. Everything was either too dark or just black. Haven't figured out if that was because I was set in Custom WB or what it was. I hope it's gone next time I fire it up though. LOL
I ended up setting it to Custom and just using the halogen light, which seemed to work fine.
Thanks for looking Francisco. I do have a nice supply of wild and garden flowers in and around my yard. Sort of like your swamp area there in Spain, only not wet.
