Hairy Eyes !!

[NikonUser]

Collected this male Horse Fly (Hybomitra lasiophthalma) recently.
The entire eye is covered with dense hair but it is obvious only at the top and front edges.
Eye depth = 2.2 mm.
I think it has the hairiest eyes I have ever seen on an insect.
Practically impossible to remove the 'junk' (pollen?) from the eyes without damaging the hairs.

Nikon 105MF Micro Nikkor, f/8 on lens, bellows, ZS PMax; cropped.

[Graham46]

Great shot-- Very nice contrast, and ZS did an excellent job with all those hairs. Definitely not enough 'junk' to interfere with a good looking set of eyes.

[Eric F]

Your shots are consistently superb NU!
Yes, that is one hairy dude. Have you tried blowing away the dirt with blasts of air? I have long used something called an "Eco-Duster" -- which squirts-out concentrated blasts of air to very small spots, using just hand pressure. Generally works great -- especially on 'fresh' specimens like your horse fly. See this Ted Pella site: http://www.tedpella.com/tools_html/tool ... chor368274
(Gosh, they've gotten expensive...! Imported from Switzerland.)

Eric

[NikonUser]

Thanks guys.

Graham: The black background certainly works well with these fine pale hairs. I print many of my images and that much black using an ink-jet printer uses a lot of ink. Rik sure did a good job with ZS.

Eric: I have a manual blower but I guess it could be improved if I reduced the orifice to get a more directional/stronger jet of air.
That's an interesting site. It just occurred to me that we are doing things backwards - we should be sucking rather than blowing. However, their vacuum systems are very expensive. Figure I can make one using a much cheaper aquarium air pump - it blows out air but it must be sucking in air at the same time.

[rjlittlefield]

Rik sure did a good job with ZS.

That's music to my ears, of course. Now all I have to figure out is how get enough volume to eventually pay some rent with it! Ah well, all things in their time...and not in this forum...

we should be sucking rather than blowing.

The problem with sucking is that you only get a decent stream velocity right next to the orifice. It drops way off just a couple of diameters away. Still, if one hooked a strong vacuum to a piece of small tubing and worked under a scope??

--Rik

[NikonUser]

Thanks Rik, saves me mucking around trying to make a mini-vacuum.

Actually I do 'clean-up' my bugs under a stereo scope using a fine paint brush and a blower; but I reckon much of the junk is pollen which is quite sticky (I think).

Simply moving the bug from the scope to the camera set up somehow seems to attract a least one small thread that looks huge on the image.

I reckon a bunch of flies would make a great dust magnet for cleaning the low-pass filter.

[lauriek]

Simply moving the bug from the scope to the camera set up somehow seems to attract a least one small thread that looks huge on the image.

Sorry but I'm glad I'm not the only one that happens to!

Lovely shot btw.

[ChrisR]

Figure I can make one using a much cheaper aquarium air pump - it blows out air but it must be sucking in air at the same time.

You could also get suction from a blower using a venturi. Ie a squashed bit of pipe with a smaller tube going in the side.

[NikonUser]

You could also get suction from a blower using a venturi. Ie a squashed bit of pipe with a smaller tube going in the side.

Thanks for jogging the old memory. The new-style Insect Pooter works that way, suck on the old ones, blow on the new ones.