wooldlouse husk and eyefield

[Cyclops]

I really wanted to get a shot of a woodlouse eyefield under the microscope, but to do so I would need a dead woodlouse. Unfortunately by the time I've put the kids to bed, its dark and cold out in the garden and I could only find one sad dried up old husk tied up in spider web in the shed!
Nonetheless I had a go...
I'm using a desk lamp with 40W tungsten bulb which gets ruddy hot-I need to source a flourescent bulb with a small screw in fitting and adjust WB accordingly.

First the carapace at 40X. The black dots are I believe faeces from whatever has fed on it.



And then the eyefield, at 200X approx (10X eyepiece,20x objective, camera zoomed in past the black circle, then cropped somewhat in PS)

[rjlittlefield]

This is promising stuff.

The rainbow effects in your second image are probably due to harsh illumination combined with very fine structure of the subject, similar to the "spectral fly" discussed HERE. Harsh illumination can have other odd effects with OOF reflections, as shown HERE.

To avoid those, if you wish, I recommend more diffuse illumination for photographing. An external flash shot through paper or a white foam cup wrapped around the specimen would work well. Continuous illumination for framing and focusing still works fine, and generally you don't even need to turn that off to shoot because whatever continuous illumination you have will be swamped by flash and a 1/200 second shutter speed. Flash will also suppress what appears to be a bit of motion blur in the second image.

--Rik

[Cyclops]

This is promising stuff.

The rainbow effects in your second image are probably due to harsh illumination combined with very fine structure of the subject, similar to the "spectral fly" discussed HERE. Harsh illumination can have other odd effects with OOF reflections, as shown HERE.

To avoid those, if you wish, I recommend more diffuse illumination for photographing. An external flash shot through paper or a white foam cup wrapped around the specimen would work well. Continuous illumination for framing and focusing still works fine, and generally you don't even need to turn that off to shoot because whatever continuous illumination you have will be swamped by flash and a 1/200 second shutter speed. Flash will also suppress what appears to be a bit of motion blur in the second image.

--Rik

Thanks Rik, flash sounds good, unfortunately there would be no way of triggering it plus it wouldn't synch with the camera. Im using a canon compact literally held over the eyepiece, tricky stuff. And I darent cover the lamp with diffusing material for fear of starting a fire!