Denizens of the (not very) deep!

Images made through a microscope. All subject types.

Moderators: rjlittlefield, ChrisR, Chris S., Pau

Charles Krebs
Posts: 5865
Joined: Tue Aug 01, 2006 8:02 pm
Location: Issaquah, WA USA
Contact:

Denizens of the (not very) deep!

Post by Charles Krebs »

Here are a few shots from the salt water sample I took this week from a fishing pier in Seattle.

4/0.16 S Plan Apo, brightfield. Not a very large "stack", but it drove me crazy moving the little "plumes". I gave up and was later surprised that there was one batch that looked OK.
Image

60/1.40 S Plan Apo, DIC. This dinoflagellate was really far too "deep" into the slide for the 60X. I could barely focus without hitting the cover slip. As a result the resolution isn't very good, but it was an interesting angle on a "dino" I had not seen before.
Image

10/0.40 S Plan Apo, darkfield. No idea what this is...:smt102 (but it looks neat!)
Image

20/0.46 S Plan Achromat, darkfield. I can't do darkfield with the 20/0.70 without changing condensers, so I occasionally put a 0.46 Plan Achromat on the nosepiece for times when the 10X just isn't enough.
Image

10/0.40 S Plan Apo, darkfield. Cropped from the center of a horizontal frame.
Image

This was an old 25X Zeiss Neofluar (0.60 I think). When used with the darkfield stop I've placed in my condenser it provides a lighting that is right on the "edge" of darkfield and "circular oblique".
It doesn't always look that good, but with certain subjects it seems to work nicely. This was a very deep slide and these diatoms were right up against the cover slip. The other debris had settled to the bottom and made what I felt was an interesting background

Image :smt102

sonyalpha
Posts: 915
Joined: Sat Apr 24, 2010 1:41 am
Location: Middle England
Contact:

Post by sonyalpha »

Charles.......these are just amazing:

I don't do this kind of photography but I really appreciate the technical and artistic effort that goes in to producing such work:

I can appreciate these on more that one level...........the one thought striking me at present is that ........what fantastic design ideas for a set of very classy jewellery you have here..........show them to a gold/silversmith as soon as you can: :smt045

To see these tiny creatures brings home just how devastating oil-spills and pollution can be:

Thank you for posting:

P.S. I will leave all the technicalities and the Latin names to the relevant experts::D

sonyalpha
Retired but not old in spirit:

Fairly new to photography........keen to learn:

fpelectronica
Posts: 1808
Joined: Fri Feb 19, 2010 3:56 pm
Location: España

Post by fpelectronica »

Hello Charles:

Very nice shots!!!
Fascinating and enigmatic salt water organism.

Best regards.

Tardigrade37
Posts: 134
Joined: Tue Mar 04, 2008 7:38 pm

Post by Tardigrade37 »

Hi Charles,

Beautiful as always!

I do have one short question - what is the source of the horizontal lines in the background of the first image?

Regards,

Chris

Charles Krebs
Posts: 5865
Joined: Tue Aug 01, 2006 8:02 pm
Location: Issaquah, WA USA
Contact:

Post by Charles Krebs »

What lines? :wink: :wink: (not fair, I know... they are gone now)

Actually I don't know! I went back to the original source files, the completed stack, the color corrected/edited "TIF" version I had saved and don't see a hint of them. I checked the "jpg" file that was "saved for web" in the folder that I use to upload to my site for the forum links, and this file is also without problems. So it happened somewhere from the point where I started to upload it. I'm not computer savvy enough to know how that could happen, but the only explanation I can see now is that it somehow was "corrupted" in the uploading process. I've never noticed it before.

edit... I've uploaded and replaced the image several times now. On a couple of occasions it showed these faint horizontal bands, and other times not! So it does appear to be an "uploading" problem.

rjlittlefield
Site Admin
Posts: 23561
Joined: Tue Aug 01, 2006 8:34 am
Location: Richland, Washington State, USA
Contact:

Post by rjlittlefield »

My first thought after hearing "upload" and "corruption" was that there had been a glitch in one of the tables that JPEG uses to do its last bit of compression. That sort of error could conceivably propagate from being a small localized error in a lookup table to being a globally visible repeating pattern in the image.

It's odd that the problem is even semi-reproducible. Usually file corruption during upload is completely random. Puzzling... :?

--Rik

Cyclops
Posts: 3084
Joined: Sat Aug 05, 2006 5:18 pm
Location: North East of England
Contact:

Post by Cyclops »

Lovely shots Rik, that first one is a real oddity,love it!
Canon 5D and 30D | Canon IXUS 265HS | Cosina 100mm f3.5 macro | EF 75-300 f4.5-5.6 USM III | EF 50 f1.8 II | Slik 88 tripod | Apex Practicioner monocular microscope

rjlittlefield
Site Admin
Posts: 23561
Joined: Tue Aug 01, 2006 8:34 am
Location: Richland, Washington State, USA
Contact:

Post by rjlittlefield »

Cyclops wrote:Lovely shots Rik, that first one is a real oddity,love it!
Thanks, but the pictures are from Charles. This sort of photography is far beyond my capabilities in every regard!

--Rik

Franz Neidl
Posts: 747
Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2009 11:59 am
Location: Italy

Post by Franz Neidl »

Hallo Charles!

Congratulation! The third picture could show a larva (maybe a Dipleurula) from Asterias rubens (commion starfish) and the last picture Ditylum brightwellii.

Franz

Cyclops
Posts: 3084
Joined: Sat Aug 05, 2006 5:18 pm
Location: North East of England
Contact:

Post by Cyclops »

rjlittlefield wrote:
Cyclops wrote:Lovely shots Rik, that first one is a real oddity,love it!
Thanks, but the pictures are from Charles. This sort of photography is far beyond my capabilities in every regard!

--Rik
lol, oh dear! Its the heat today, finally got to me!
Great shots Charles!
Canon 5D and 30D | Canon IXUS 265HS | Cosina 100mm f3.5 macro | EF 75-300 f4.5-5.6 USM III | EF 50 f1.8 II | Slik 88 tripod | Apex Practicioner monocular microscope

lauriek
Posts: 2402
Joined: Sun Nov 25, 2007 6:57 am
Location: South East UK
Contact:

Post by lauriek »

Fantastic set Charlie, I particularly like the last two..

...and I second Sonyalpha's suggestion re jewellery, not sure how the heck you could make them but perhaps Fabergé or someone could do them justice. :)

ScottH
Posts: 33
Joined: Sun Feb 07, 2010 12:38 pm

Post by ScottH »

Wow again - great images - please keep adding these !

Scott H.

RogelioMoreno
Posts: 2979
Joined: Fri Nov 20, 2009 11:24 am
Location: Panama

Post by RogelioMoreno »

Charles,

Amazing!

Rogelio

svalley
Posts: 343
Joined: Sun Dec 03, 2006 7:07 pm
Location: Albany, Oregon

Post by svalley »

Wow! Charlie, these are stunning!

Steve
"You can't build a time machine without weird optics"
Steve Valley - Albany, Oregon

PaulFurman
Posts: 595
Joined: Sat Oct 24, 2009 3:14 pm
Location: SF, CA, USA
Contact:

Post by PaulFurman »

Wow. I'd barely stumbled into this group before, this is inspiring!

Post Reply Previous topicNext topic