A couple more of a peacock feather

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Sat Apr 20, 2013 9:49 pm

Peacock feather. Mitutoyo 10X M Plan Apo, Nikon MM-11 microscope. Canon T3i.

Roy Patience · Post by **Roy Patience** » Sat Apr 20, 2013 11:45 pm

The colors are so beautiful and saturated. The strands appear iridescent, are they? I have never looked that closely at a Peacock feather.

Roy

Simon W · Post by **Simon W** » Sun Apr 21, 2013 6:11 am

Yes gorgeous colours and patterns. Is this from the iridescent 'eye' of the feather?

Marek Mis · Post by **Marek Mis** » Sun Apr 21, 2013 10:34 am

Charlie, could you take any worse photographs ? Your images are always perfect !

Marek

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Sun Apr 21, 2013 3:12 pm

Is this from the iridescent 'eye' of the feather?

The strands appear iridescent, are they?

Yes, in and around the "eye". Peacock feathers are an excellent example of "structural color". Instead of pigments, the color is caused by microscopic surface "nanostructures" that cause wave interference with visible light. Very much like seen in certain beetles and in the wing scales of certain butterflies and moths. The actual structures are extremely small and can only be visually studied with electron microscopes.

There is some interesting light physics going on... here a a couple of references:

http://tinyurl.com/4m7fz7r
http://jeb.biologists.org/content/209/4 ... l.pdf+html

For photography the physical appearance looks very "metallic". It's best to carefully check three color histograms to insure exposures that don't completely "blow out" one of the RGB channels.

curt0909 · Post by **curt0909** » Mon Apr 22, 2013 12:20 pm

Very beautiful Charlie... Recently some researchers developed a way to change the color of metals using a similar concept. They actually made green gold.

RogelioMoreno · Post by **RogelioMoreno** » Tue Apr 23, 2013 7:52 am

Beautiful colors!

Rogelio