Polypodium sporangia

[Pau]

Polypodium cambricum, a common fern in northern Spain, but rare here, in the mediterranean dry east where I live.

The leaf surface is very reflective. To avoid reflections, the illuminantion was done whith cross polarized light, both polarizers at the end of two fiber optic light guides and the analyzer behind the macro lens.
First image of inmature sorus, I like its transparency, second one of mature sorus. I was surprised to see the epidermical cells and stoma at this moderate magnification.

Zeiss Luminar 40mm f4.5 on Pentax M42 bellows. EOS 50D. Focus stack whith microscope stage, CombineZP 30 images




Many thaks to all the skilled photographers in this forums, in special to Charles Krebs. This is the best school of macro and micro photography I can imagine.

[rjlittlefield]

Very nice!

I think this is the first use of cross-polarized illumination with fiber optics that has been shown here. Did you have any diffusion on the fiber bundles behind the polarizers, or were these naked bundles?

By the way, welcome aboard!

--Rik

[Pau]

Rik,
I used naked fiberoptics ends, no lenses or diffusers, I plan to try it later, when I had the time.
Thanks for your kind words.

[PaulFurman]

Pau,

You reminded me that I left an unfinished stack of an almost identical scene of a California Polypody, which I've now finished. I don't recall all the specifics but you can see I had some pretty bad highlights to deal with, using no polarized light.

Paul

[Jordialcoi]

Ja mateix m'estàs explicant com fas açò. Increïble.