Alga or crocodile?

[Wolfgang Bettighofer]

My fascinating sample from alpine fens gave me the chance to photograph Netrium digitus for the first time. A number of shots were stacked manually. So it's possible to show both the surface of the desmid an the nucleus. There are intersting textures on the cell wall. As they are in focus with the tongues of the chloroplasts the texture is on the inner side of call wall. The dots were moving slowly so they could have been mitochondria.



Netrium digitus
63/1,4, DIC
3W Luxeon
Olympus C7070

Kind regards,
Wolfgang

[Ken Ramos]

Well I am sure of it not being a crocodile there Wolfgang and to be quite honest, it really reminds me of a cucumber An interesting view of the desmid and a good clear shot of the nucleus, very detailed and very nice work Wolfgang

[beetleman]

Wonderful textures on that desmid photo Wolfgang. They have to be some of the most beautiful creatures in the micro world and you captured this one very well.

[Charles Krebs]

Wolfgang, wonderful quality in these images! I am curious how you have your Olympus "connected" to your microscope. Also, do you feel that the color rendition of the LED is equally good as tungsten?

[Wolfgang Bettighofer]

Wolfgang, wonderful quality in these images! I am curious how you have your Olympus "connected" to your microscope. Also, do you feel that the color rendition of the LED is equally good as tungsten?

Hi Charles,

thanks for commendation.
Soligor delivers an adaption tube for C5060 and C7070. Based on this I manufactured an mic-adaption.

LED and color redention:
Zeiss delivers a conversion filter to change tungsten in daylight. I don't think about the normal BG12 blue glass but the so called "White-balance filter". Marvellous! Once you had a look through the microscope using tungsten AND White-balance filter you definitely need this glass. Brilliant color and color contrast enhancement! It's a dichroitic filter.

Loving this combination for years I had a look through a microscope using Luxeon 3W LED and were impressed. Color redention was very similar to that I was familiar with using 100W halogen tungsten plus White-balance filter.
Today I have LED on the Universal and the Standard, the tungsten is "retired".

So long, Wolfgang

[rjlittlefield]

Wolfgang, I agree with the other guys -- this is a wonderful image!

A couple of things I am curious about...

First, are the colors actually like this, for desmid versus background, or have you toned down the background to make it so neutral gray? (I have no experience with desmids!)

Second, after some study I figured out that the higher magnification inset appears identical to a chunk of the larger image, just right of center, except enlarged about 2X and rotated 180 degrees.

Is the inset really an enlarged crop, and if so, why the rotation?

--Rik

[Wolfgang Bettighofer]

...
A couple of things I am curious about...

First, are the colors actually like this, for desmid versus background, ...

... the higher magnification inset appears ... enlarged about 2X and rotated 180 degrees.

...
--Rik

Hi Rik,

you really are a detective, aren't you?!
I used an objective with nA 1,4 for the appr. 40 shots which were necessary to assemble this picture due to the tiny depht of focus gaining with Planapo 63/1.4 and DIC. So I used Photoshop overlay technique to stack manually. So I got the chance control the background layer separately. Color of background was faded highlighting the Netrium.

Why the 180° rotation? DIC contrasts phase differences with dark and bright contours. In normal position the dots representing the mitochondria had a dark contour on the upper side and a bright one below.
As we are familiar with light coming frome above the standard orientation of magnified inset was somewhat vexing...

Cheers, Wolfgang

[Charles Krebs]

Wolfgang... is the LED a "custom" modification you made, or does Zeiss offer an option? If you made it, do you have any pictures of the arrangement?

[Wolfgang Bettighofer]

Wolfgang... is the LED a "custom" modification you made, or does Zeiss offer an option? If you made it, do you have any pictures of the arrangement?

Hi Charles,

for the Zeiss Standard it's easy to show: I changed the socket for mounting the "bulb 15" with a hand made mount positioning the LED at position of spiral-wound filament of bulb. Look at this:

.

On the Universal I use in principle the same technique. But I'm using an external lamp house (60W). So I've made several changes in order to mount also a flashlight tube using microscope slide as semipermeable mirror.
The effect: flash and LED in Köhler-position

.

Further questions are welcome...

So long, Wolfgang