Honeybee legs

[rjlittlefield]

I was pretty surprised by what I saw when I picked this specimen off my driveway and put it under the scope. Apparently I've forgotten most of whatever I might have known about bee legs!

It happened that the legs were positioned just right so that I could see the outside of one hind leg and the inside of its mate at the same time.

Juxtaposition of pollen combs on the inside and pollen basket on the outside made an interesting comparison, so I took some photos.

The whole frame:


Crop of the center, 75% of actual pixels:


Crossed-eye stereo of the whole frame :


Crossed-eye stereo of the crop area:


Canon T1i camera, Mitutoyo 5X NA 0.14 Plan Apo objective on Olympus 135 mm bellows lens, overall optical magnification roughly 3.4X. Illuminated by two Jansjo LED lamps and a Kleenex light tent. StackShot, 96 frames at 0.025 mm. Zerene Stacker synthetic stereo from a single stack. What's posted here are screen grabs from StereoPhoto Maker, so they're more grainy than what I usually show.

For your convenience, here are some links to related pictures by other people:

http://www.photomacrography1.net/forum/ ... php?t=1997
http://www.photomacrography1.net/forum/ ... php?t=2003
http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... php?t=8505
http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... hp?t=17360

I hope you enjoy!

--Rik

[DQE]

Rik,

Very interesting and most enjoyable photos.

I was surprised at how much 3D helped with these photographs. While I'm used to seeing benefits and enjoyable effects, in this case, 3D made quite radical changes in my perception of the underlying anatomy. Is this just me or is there something about how this was taken that would predict such a favorable reaction to 3D?

[rjlittlefield]

Thanks, Phil.

in this case, 3D made quite radical changes in my perception of the underlying anatomy. Is this just me or is there something about how this was taken that would predict such a favorable reaction to 3D?

I don't think there's anything special about the way this was taken.

My guess about what's happening is that:
1) the shapes and arrangements of various parts are complicated;
2) in some areas they're different from what you'd expect;
3) the non-stereo views do not provide strong depth cues so any misinterpretations can persist; but
4) the stereo views provide unambiguous depth cues that suddenly correct any misinterpretations.

As an example, when I look at the non-stereo views I tend to see the area of the pollen basket as being convex toward me like most insect legs are, with a fringe of hairs on the right lying in the plane of the photograph. But that's wrong. When I look at the stereo pair, it clubs me over the head with the fact that the pollen basket is concave and the fringe of hairs actually points outward. So then my reaction is "Ahh, now I understand."

Similarly my preconception is that the legs must be straight down from the body and therefore widely separated in depth, but the stereo view makes clear that the legs tip together so that the lower parts are basically touching.

Is it something like that for you?

--Rik

[DQE]

Your description matched my experience both in general as well as in mmost specifics.

Thus, as one would expect, the benefits in terms of comprehension and in basic/fundamental visual accuracy varies considerably from scene to scene. I hadn't really thought about that much with respect to bugs, but I am now more sensitive to this. I suppose that with enough experience with enough different bug scenes, one would begin to become "calibrated" as to which scenes will work better. I was surprised by this scene mostly because I unknowingly grossly misperceived the original 2D photo - perhaps that's just another way of saying the same thing (in general terms).

Regardless, I really enjoyed these photos, learning much more than I expected about 3D as well as this subject and its basic anatomy.

[anvancy]

Highly detailed shot there Rik. Loving the details. I wanted to ask you whether such photos are possible by the MPE? When I tried my hand at stacking I only took 8-10 photos of that Lily Moth wing and I had enough details. Is it because the number of steps involved during the stack that makes the difference?

Sorry to be sounding foolish but in my rail case(that ebay one) since there is no precision locking mechanism,one turn invariably shifts the camera a big distance which in effect is giving less number of shots?

Anvancy

[Fredlab]

Excellent work.
(it's been two years that I think about it, but I do not have a leg to availability Bee (and I do not want to sacrifice one of these brave workers))

[rjlittlefield]

Highly detailed shot there Rik. Loving the details. I wanted to ask you whether such photos are possible by the MPE? When I tried my hand at stacking I only took 8-10 photos of that Lily Moth wing and I had enough details. Is it because the number of steps involved during the stack that makes the difference?

Yes, the MP-E can produce results very similar to this. See for example my small lichen at 3X, stereo version HERE. Shooting with a wide aperture and shallow steps captures finer detail and gives a better stereo effect. Deeper subjects require proportionally more frames.

Sorry to be sounding foolish but in my rail case(that ebay one) since there is no precision locking mechanism,one turn invariably shifts the camera a big distance which in effect is giving less number of shots?

Using a rail with some sort of screw drive is almost mandatory at this scale. A rail using friction drive or a simple rack and pinion will typically have about 25 mm of linear movement per turn of the knob. That makes it pretty challenging to do 1/40 mm steps, as I used here.

--Rik