Introduction and quick question

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JSkory
Posts: 45
Joined: Fri Jan 01, 2021 9:10 am
Location: Wixom, Michigan USA
Contact:

Introduction and quick question

Post by JSkory »

Hello,

I've been lurking for a little while and just registered today. My name is Jeff Skory and I am new to macro photography. I bought myself a pretty nice stereo microscope with a camera and have been taking pictures for a little over a month now. I also bought a copy of Helicon Focus 7 after playing around with a few different stacking programs.

I was putting my photos up on Google Photos to share with friends and family but it has a lot of limitation in that you can't really write anything about it. So I have started a blog and have quite a few pictures and descriptions posted on there so far. The blog can be found at jeffskory.com if you are interested. I'll be posting pictures here as well as time goes on to get feedback from you guys.

So to start things off I have a quick question which many of you experts can probably help me with. Below are a few stacked photos I made of a fly I found. I would like to be able to identify what it is. Having looked through my Peterson Field Guide to Insects of North America I think it probably belongs to the crane fly family Tipulidae, but the book really doesn't go much beyond this other than to say there are over 1500 species in North America.

What are some good resources I could make use of to get a little closer to identifying this little guy, and future insects I will run across once our weather warms up again? Books, websites, etc.

Image
(Stacked with Helicon using 12 images)

Image
(stacked from 27 images)

Image
(stacked from 34 images)

Right now I am using the focus ring on the 0.5X lens sitting beneath the camera to change focus depth between pictures. I bought a Bausch & Lomb microscope base from ebay that will arrive next week than I am going to modify to use as a focus platform. Hopefully it will give me a little finer control. And eventually I'll buy a ultrasonic cleaner as well. (I have been reading here and elsewhere :D )

Scarodactyl
Posts: 1616
Joined: Sat Apr 14, 2018 10:26 am

Re: Introduction and quick question

Post by Scarodactyl »

Looks like you are off to a good start. As a quick note, unless you have a specialized adapter your amscope will not fit into a bausch and lomb stand. The amscope has a modern standard 76mm round mount, while bausch and lomb has an ideosyncratic rounded rectangular mount. Adapters were made by a few companies but are pretty expensive. I also made up a 3d printable adapter which I need to finalize and put up on thingiverse, which would probably be the cheapest option.

JSkory
Posts: 45
Joined: Fri Jan 01, 2021 9:10 am
Location: Wixom, Michigan USA
Contact:

Re: Introduction and quick question

Post by JSkory »

Scarodactyl wrote:
Fri Jan 01, 2021 12:57 pm
... As a quick note, unless you have a specialized adapter your amscope will not fit into a bausch and lomb stand...
Hi Scarodactyl,

I am not planning on using the Bausch & Lomb as part of my microscope. I am going to cut the head off of it and use the stage which has a coarse and fine focus knobs so that I can hopefully move my specimen up/down by very tiny amounts to alter the focus depth between pictures rather than my current method of spinning the focus ring by tiny amounts. BTW, my microscope is from Parco Scientific. Probably made by the same chinese company that makes AmScope's equipment, but it was several hundred dollars cheaper.

Scarodactyl
Posts: 1616
Joined: Sat Apr 14, 2018 10:26 am

Re: Introduction and quick question

Post by Scarodactyl »

Ah, a compound scope. That makes more sense. You mught find it's too fine for convenient usage.
Misremembered which brand. Amscope and parco are both just importers selling much of the same stuff. These meiji lookalikes are mostly pretty similar.

abpho
Posts: 1524
Joined: Wed Aug 17, 2011 7:11 pm
Location: Earth

Re: Introduction and quick question

Post by abpho »

Welcome to the club Jeff.

I have a stack of reference books. They usually point me in the correct direction. :D Sometimes you get lucky with a vague internet search of "green beetle" too. :D
I'm in Canada! Isn't that weird?

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