Diatoms and Radiolarians

[Robert Berdan]

Over Christmas I received a book "The Art and Science of Ernst Haeckel" printed by Taschen. This a a very large and heavy book with over 700 pages of Hackels' artwork many of them are of Diatoms, Radiolarians, Ciliates etc. It is one of the most beautiful books I have encountered. It inspired me to photographs some Diatoms and Radioliarians I have on prepared slides. I used my PlanAchromat 40X objective and focus stacked about 15 images for the top 6 images. In some instances I made montages of several individual photographs of the Diatoms and Radiolarians. These organisms are one of the most artful on the planet.

I used DIC and Darkfield microscopy, stacked the images in Photoshop. Top three pictures are of fresh water Diatoms and the bottom three photos are of Radiolarians. I chose specific Diatoms and arranged them in photoshop. A full wave plate creates the blue background with DIC though one can make almost any colour. There are some stacking artificats I need to clean up, but just wanted to share these beauties with you.

Happy New Year.














This last photo is a straight image I photographed about 40 years ago on film using Darkfield microscopy then scanned the image and processed it using photoshop.

[Lou Jost]

They are magnificent, especially the ones with black background. The one you did on film is amazing! In some respects I like it the best. How did you manage that without stacking?

[Robert Berdan]

Hi Lou - thank you for your comments. I took the last photograph with a 10X objective using an Olympus E microscope and an Olympus OM-1 35 mm camera on technical plan film. I think the lower magnification objective had sufficient depth of field.

I am waiting for some RAW Radiolarian samples from Germany and hope to take many more photos.

Cheers

[Sumguy01]

Very nice.
Thanks for sharing.

[piermicro]

Very nice.

[Beatsy]

Lovely set. The film one is particularly impressive given the medium!

[Peter M. Macdonald]

Robert, these are lovely. I always like good darkfield pictures of radiolarian.

Are your samples from Germany coming from a commercial source?

[Jacek]

Very nice

[Robert Berdan]

Thanks for your comments. Peter you asked if the Diatoms are coming from a commercial source I am not sure. A few posts earlier in this forum I asked if any one knew were I could purchase some RAW Radiolarian samples and Hans Dieter replied he could send me some - see the section below with my question. If interested he might be able to supply you if interested. I ordered them before Christmas, but haven not received the samples yet, but I will make some slides and take some photos shortly after and post some photos.

I also ordered some Diatom raw samples on ebay.com that have not arrived yet. In the Spring I will collect and clean some local diatoms trying bleach, Hydrogen peroxide and acid. I have only photographed live Diatoms so far that I have collected near my home.

Cheers

[Olympusman]

I have a book of Haekel's illustrations. He was fanciful, to say the least. The wikipedia on him is fascinating. The Nazis loved him because he argued in favor of eugenics.

Mike

[Lou Jost]

I have a book of Haekel's illustrations. He was fanciful, to say the least

Yes, he is famous among the creationist anti-evolution crowd for his "enhancements" of his embryo drawings, which were often cited as evidence in favor of evolution. Creationists concluded that the evidence for evolution was fraudulent, produced by a conspiracy of atheist scientists. Of course today we have great photos that provide the same kind of evidence without fudging.

[carlos.uruguay]

Nice!!!

[lonepal]

Very nice photos!

[WalterD]

Hi Rob,

Nice set, thanks for sharing. Haeckel is surely very inspiring.

[santiago]

Great images.