Snowflake

[rjlittlefield]

We had a brief snowfall today with some well formed flakes. Here is one of them.



Shot on a board covered with ProtoStar black flocking that I keep in my freezer just for such occasions.

Canon T1i with MP-E 65 at 3X, f/11, 580 EX II flash with Opteka diffuser, auto flash exposure with minus 1-1/3 stops compensation, 4 frames handheld, Zerene Stacker PMax.

Almost all the snow is melted now. There's none at all left on the street. This particular flake and all the others captured with it simply evaporated. It's been quite a mild winter so far.

--Rik

[Ecooper]

Very cool! No pun intended...

[rjlittlefield]

Thanks, Ernie.

I marvel at those near-perfect specimens that the masters of snowflakes manage to capture and photograph so beautifully.

For myself, it's just interesting (and humbling!) to do one of these snapshots occasionally.

--Rik

[naturephoto1]

Rik,

Very nice image.

Rich

[DavefromCt]

Fantastic capture!

[rjlittlefield]

Thanks for the comments, guys.

DavefromCt, welcome aboard!

To see what a master can do, look for example at Snowflakes under DIC over in the Microscope forum.

--Rik

[DavefromCt]

Yes those were great....Ok what does DIC stand for....looks like possibly polarized light or something.

[rjlittlefield]

Ok what does DIC stand for....looks like possibly polarized light or something.

DIC stands for Differential Interference Contrast. The key concept is to turn otherwise invisible local gradients in optical path length into highly visible changes in brightness, by messing with the phase. DIC does use polarizers, but it's very different from the more common use of crossed polarizers to turn differences in optical path length into color. The crossed polarizer technique is much simpler but works only with optically active materials. DIC is much more complicated (and expensive!), but some variant of it can be made to work with almost any material.

--Rik