Defying the Frost

Images of undisturbed subjects in their natural environment. All subject types.

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morfa
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Defying the Frost

Post by morfa »

Image

Larger view here: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2587/400 ... ffdd_o.jpg

Fujifilm S5pro, Zeiss Luminar 63mm f4.5, bellows, flash + morning sun :: 13 one second exposures stacked in Helicon focus.

Hey everyone!

I just discovered this awesome forum and this is my first post. I've already learned a lot from the last couple of days intense browsing of this forum :smile:

This is a male Anthomyiid that I shot on a cold morning a couple of days ago. It actually seemed less bothered by the cold than I was and I haven't figured out why this cold blooded fellow was covered in dew drops rather than frost like everything else. Theories?

Anyway it kept shifting around and as soon as I fired a flash at it it started cleaning its eyes with its forelegs. I had to start over from the beginning of the stack many times.

Here is a shot of the, still experimental and rapidly changing, rig I used in this shot (diffuser is missing and I have a Leitz Milar mounted instead of the Luminar):

Image

Thanks for viewing and I'll go right back to reading up on photomicrography! I do all my shooting of live subjects out in the field but I'm really excited to learn about all the neat tricks and techniques I've seen presented here – in particular on the topic of higher magnification photography of non-living subjects – and the stunning results that can be produced! Cheers!

/John

ChrisR
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Post by ChrisR »

Cracking shot, John! And so much better bigger!
Lets hope we see more of yours.
And the nut and bolt heads will be wanting to know what that kit is, in the Technical forum.
I wish my legs did that!

Charles Krebs
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Post by Charles Krebs »

Welcome John.

Fantastic shot!

Aynia
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Post by Aynia »

This is a super shot - unusual to have a fly in the frost. :D

NikonUser
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Post by NikonUser »

Congratulations and welcome.
Superb image, and obviously superb technique; lens is fantastic too.
NU.
student of entomology
Quote – Holmes on ‘Entomology’
” I suppose you are an entomologist ? “
” Not quite so ambitious as that, sir. I should like to put my eyes on the individual entitled to that name.
No man can be truly called an entomologist,
sir; the subject is too vast for any single human intelligence to grasp.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr
The Poet at the Breakfast Table.

Nikon camera, lenses and objectives
Olympus microscope and objectives

Ken Ramos
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Post by Ken Ramos »

Don't think anyone could ask for much better details than what is in that photo, excellent work! I really like that rig also :smt023 . I once had hoped to acquire a Fuji S5 Pro but it was way out of my budget at the time. Now I eagerly await the EOS 7D which is much closer to what I can afford. :D

morfa
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Post by morfa »

Thank you so much for your comments everybody!

I'm sure shots like this will be much easier for me soon thanks to this forum. I've just learned about the linear focusing stages with micrometer actuators! I didn't even know these things existed and I've had a lot of trouble getting the focus increments precise enough with the coarse rails and helicoids I've been using!

/John :)

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

A wonderful photo -- and welcome aboard! :D

About the ice versus water drops, I would guess that the temperature is barely below freezing and the surface of the fly is so clean and water-repellent that it does not provide nucleation sites. If that's right, then the water droplets would be very slightly super-cooled. I'm looking around for any that have crystallized. Might be a couple just above the wing base, but I'm not sure.

In looking that closely, I noticed something that I'm puzzled by. Just above the wing base, there's what looks like another chunk of membrane, and the thorax above that has an odd contour -- kind of jutting up and back instead of rounding down toward the abdomen as I would expect. I can't imagine how these could be artifacts, but I have to ask: do these features accurately reflect the fly, or are they artifacts that crept in during the stacking?

Edited to add... Ah, I see. Checking in BugGuide, it seems that I'm probably looking at a "well developed calypter" and a thorax shape that is not unusual for the group. OK, forget that question!

--Rik

morfa
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Post by morfa »

Yes, that seems like a very reasonable explanation Rik – thank you!

The temperature was somewhere between one and five degrees Celsius.

/John

q_hung
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Post by q_hung »

Great shot and congratulations morfa!

I wish I could take pictures of live, small insects like yours. You have a very impressive gear including the tripod. It should be tailor made?!

AndrewC
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Post by AndrewC »

rjlittlefield wrote: About the ice versus water drops, I would guess that the temperature is barely below freezing and the surface of the fly is so clean and water-repellent that it does not provide nucleation sites. If that's right, then the water droplets would be very slightly super-cooled. I'm looking around for any that have crystallized. Might be a couple just above the wing base, but I'm not sure.
Could it be that the fly crawled out of a hole while dew was forming as opposed to the vegetation which had been there all night freezing ?

Nice photo :)

Andrew

ChrisR
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Post by ChrisR »

Wouldn't its "shifting around" undo any supercooling?

If the air temp is above 0, the ice on the ground is melting(/subliming).
The water on the fly is from dewfall - moisture over-laden warmer air, condensing on any nucleation site it passes.

?

Which is kinda what Andrew said, except that it could have been icebound all night, but quicker to thaw. Don't they generate any heat?

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

Knowing that the air temp is above freezing certainly opens some more possibilities. One of them is that droplets on the fly are less connected to their substrate so they warm up faster.
Don't they generate any heat?
Sure. The question is how much. The only data I know that seems relevant here is that some moths are able to raise their internal body temperature by 10 degrees C or so, to enable flight at low temperatures. But to do that they have to actively shiver for many seconds, inside a thick coat of furry scales. By analogy I would expect a quiet fly to be only a small fraction of a degree above ambient.

--Rik

NikonUser
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Post by NikonUser »

A black body in the morning sun
NU.
student of entomology
Quote – Holmes on ‘Entomology’
” I suppose you are an entomologist ? “
” Not quite so ambitious as that, sir. I should like to put my eyes on the individual entitled to that name.
No man can be truly called an entomologist,
sir; the subject is too vast for any single human intelligence to grasp.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr
The Poet at the Breakfast Table.

Nikon camera, lenses and objectives
Olympus microscope and objectives

rjlittlefield
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Posts: 23564
Joined: Tue Aug 01, 2006 8:34 am
Location: Richland, Washington State, USA
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Post by rjlittlefield »

No obvious difference between droplets on body and those isolated way out on the wings.

--Rik

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