Rear leg of a honey bee. It is in this joint where pollen will be crushed and then collected against the leg. Here you can see the rake and auricle of the "pollen packer" (at lower side of joint), and the pollen brush on the first tarsal segment (right side of picture).
Olympus 4x S Plan Apo, Canon 350D. 36 image stack with Helicon Focus.
Fascinating photograph Charles. Technical excellence goes without saying, but it's also an image that makes you want to really LOOK CLOSE - appreciate the beauty, work out functionality and just marvel at just how amazing it ALL is!
Ken... there are a few isolated pollen grains on this leg. I had posted a view of a bee's leg back in the old forum that was loaded with pollen and also labeled the "parts": http://www.photomacrography1.net/forum/ ... hlight=bee
It is interesting to compare it to this "clean" shot.
Boy that is an old post, Frez is on there. Somehow I managed missing that post. Looks quite textbook and an excellent job of putting it together there Charlie.
Wow, another great shot, Charles! The black BKG really makes this stunning. This puts your close-up detail of the pollen rake in context for me. I am always struck when I look at the fine structure of insects, just how fine tuned form and function are in these organisms.
"You can't build a time machine without weird optics"
Steve Valley - Albany, Oregon