Some Diatoms for Frez --Yet More Images Added

Cactusdave · Post by **Cactusdave** » Tue Jul 31, 2012 9:53 am

Inspired by Frez, I did a quick scour of my hard drives for some interesting Diatom shots. I'm not very good at recording names, but no doubt some will be species will be familiar.

This first one is a real golden oldie taken in 2008. Objective was an old but good 'S' series Nikon fluorite X70 1.25 oil, and the camera was a Panasonic DMC-LS2 through the eyepiece.

Fossil diatoms don't usually do colour, with the exception of the well known darkfield interference colours of course. This next one is an exception, a large diatom from an old Topping arranged mount, incident light on a Leitz Ortholux 1 with Leitz Ultropak, X22 objective, and Panasonic G1 camera.

Got to love this one, it looks so much like a nice full pork pie!

Label says strew from Cormack's sidings Oamaru, New Zealand. Zeiss Planapo X25 objective Canon 40D camera.

Showcasing the Nikon UV-F X40 1.3 glycerol immersion lens. Canon 40D.

This one showcases the talents of the Lomo X70 1.23 water immersion lens. Zeiss Standard microscope with Goerz condenser, Lomo X7 photoeyepiece in a Pentax adapter,Canon 40D. The diatom is Pleurosigma angulatum, a classic test diatom.

Got to end with a tribute to those with the skill to arrange diatoms into pretty patterns. A classic Victorian arranged slide sold by Watson, imaged in darkfield with a Zeiss X4 Planapo objective on a Zeiss Standard, using the Goerz condenser in darkfield mode. Composite of 10 images.

I found a few more nice images in my search, so I'll add some more images in due course.

Frez · Post by **Frez** » Tue Jul 31, 2012 10:36 am

Classic stuff Dave! The pork pie is great. That angle can be tough to image, but it reveals a lot about the specimen. That Nikon is a beautiful objective and the interference aspect on #2 is nicely pronounced.

Thanks!
Frez

Cactusdave · Post by **Cactusdave** » Tue Jul 31, 2012 11:13 am

Thanks Frez. Your comments are appreciated. I love diatoms, though lately I have been doing more low power composite and stack and stitch images from much larger subjects. The Zeiss Standard and Goerz condenser ( http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... +condenser ) is a nice combination for looking at diatoms, but I don't presently have room for it on the bench.

Pau · Post by **Pau** » Tue Jul 31, 2012 11:15 am

Dave, what a set of wonderful images!

Cactusdave · Post by **Cactusdave** » Tue Jul 31, 2012 11:47 am

Thanks Pau, it was nice to raid the vault for some older images

as well as some more recent ones.

Jacek · Post by **Jacek** » Tue Jul 31, 2012 12:15 pm

Beautiful pictures, especially the second

Cactusdave · Post by **Cactusdave** » Tue Jul 31, 2012 12:57 pm

Thanks Jacek. I have a 3D rendering of a darkfield image of that particular diatom which is rather nice. I'll post it tomorrow.

Cactusdave · Post by **Cactusdave** » Wed Aug 01, 2012 1:16 am

As promised a 3D image of that last diatom. I've seen pictures of this species elsewhere, but can't put a name to it. If someone else can I'd be glad to see it. This picture was taken a couple of years ago on a Zeiss Standard Microscope with a X10 Nikon Planapo objective, Goerz condenser in darkfield mode, Lomo 15X photoeyepiece, Pentax adapter and Canon 40D camera. A series of 12 images was stacked and rendered into 3D with Helicon focus.

In response to Frez's beautiful Actinoptychus heliopelta, this is my take. Actually quite an old photo, taken on a Leitz Ortholux 1 with incident lighting, X22 epi objective and eyepiece coupling with a Maxview widefield eyepiece and Canon G9 camera.

pwnell · Post by **pwnell** » Wed Aug 01, 2012 12:39 pm

Really cool, especially #2

RogelioMoreno · Post by **RogelioMoreno** » Wed Aug 01, 2012 4:08 pm

Dave,

Very nice set.

Rogelio

Cactusdave · Post by **Cactusdave** » Thu Aug 02, 2012 1:07 am

Thanks Rogelio and pnewell.

A couple more pictures taken with the Ortholux 1 and the X22 epi-objective. I think this combination works well for larger diatoms, giving a perspective that it's difficult to achieve with transmitted light.

This is a large Triceratium species I think.

This looks like a bit of broken diatom debris that has been 'speared' with a couple of sponge spicules. I love the texture of this one.

RogelioMoreno · Post by **RogelioMoreno** » Thu Aug 02, 2012 3:52 am

Dave,

The last two pictures were with epi illumination only or epi + transmited?

I like the effects!

Rogelio

Cactusdave · Post by **Cactusdave** » Thu Aug 02, 2012 6:12 am

Interesting question Rogelio. No, this was 100% incident light from the Ortholux lamphousing in the upper incident light position on the microscope limb using the Leitz Ultropak incident light device.

I have in fact experimented with mixed incident/transmitted illumination on this microscope using the X22 epi-objective. It's tricky to get just right as it's so easy to overwhelm the incident light component with transmitted light. The following picture is mixed illumination using a fibre optic for the transmitted illumination set really low, plus a neutral density filter. It manages to retain some interference colors and modeling effects from the incident light while having some benefits of increased resolution and contrast of transmitted light. It is an older picture I took back in 2008 with eyepiece coupling of a Nikon Coolpix 5100 compact camera and suffers a little in quality for that. The background has been set to black in Photoshop.

naturephoto1 · Post by **naturephoto1** » Fri Aug 03, 2012 5:26 am

Dave,

Outstanding images.

Rich

Cactusdave · Post by **Cactusdave** » Sat Aug 04, 2012 2:50 am

Thanks Rich your comment is appreciated. It's been a real trip down memory lane, and a pleasure to dig out these diatom images, some of which go back four years.

I thought I'd end with a few pictures with higher magnification lenses. This was taken with the Lomo 70X 1.23 Water immersion Apochromat. This is a fine lens but needs care as it does not have a sprung nosepiece and the working distnace is tiny. The lens was mounted on a Zeiss Standard with the Goerz condenser and a Lomo 7X photoeyepiece coupled to a Canon 40D using a Pentax adapter.

The remaining shots were taken with A Zeiss X63 1.4 Planapochromat. I didn't think I'd ever be able to afford one of these beauties, but eventually obtained a delaminated example that turned out to be in better condition than the vendor feared. If my example is delaminated and suboptimal then a pristine example must be extraordinary indeed. These pictures were also taken with a very modest 0.52 NA condenser on a Nikon Diaphot, so better resolution could no doubt be obtained with a high NA condenser on a Zeiss microscope properly oiled to the back of the slide. The larger diatom is a Biddulphia Sp.

This is not, I think a diatom, but a piece of marine debris of, to me, unknown origin present on a strewn slide. I like the texture.

Finally a Melosira Sp. diatom.