too flat?

[Wim van Egmond]

An image from the archive. I did make some new images but I still have to archive them.

The trouble with high magnifications is that you have to make a flat slide. And when you want to make a stack the organims has to be motionless. So in order to shoot this dinoflagellate I had to wait until teh coverslip fixed the organism. I think it is slightly too flat (some of the plates are pressed out of their normal position) but it does show most of the features quite nicely.

Wim

[Ecki]

Wim,

I tried to make images of Ceratium, too and failed miserably. Either it was not flat enough or the body was crashed badly.

I think this is as good as it gets.

Regards
Ecki

[René]

Well, nice colours anyway. The flagellum looks flat, I've never paid attention to that. So what species do yo think it is?? C furcoides sometimes looks very similar, and the plate differences with hirundinella are not easily visible.

Best wishes, René

[Charles Krebs]

too flat?

Not at all. It came out great!

Normally, I greatly prefer images where the subject's shape is not "distorted" by the cover slip (although I have made my share of them ), but it is certainly not obvious or excessive here.

It is surprising how small (usually) the time "window" is for getting a stack of a subject like this. If the water layer is too thick the subject moves or is angled up/down too much. If the water layer evaporates too much, a fragile subject like this breaks.

[arturoag75]

Another great job

[BJ]

Wim,

I like it!


Have you tried using some gelling agent such as carboxy methyl cellulose to slow / stop subjects like this. You do have to play with the amount to add. In my experience, for example with Ceratium, the cells are inclined to burst if you add too much. But, get it right and you have a bit more time for stacking.

thanks for a beautiful post.

Brian

[Jacek]

great photo