Hydra with prey

Images made through a microscope. All subject types.

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Charles Krebs
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Location: Issaquah, WA USA
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Hydra with prey

Post by Charles Krebs »

I was looking over some pond samples with a low power stereo scope when I noticed this hydra attached to duckweed that had captured some fly or midge pupa that was about to emerge. I thought I had just missed an interesting picture opportunity, but when I looked again a few minutes later I realized that this was as far "down the hatch" as the hydra could stuff the midge. The midge had partially emerged, but now appeared dead. The hydra just sort of rested with it's mouth at the waters surface. I quickly made a small "pool" on a slide and transferred it to my microscope. I took a few shots with darkfield, but the midge was just a black blob. So I grabbed a slaved flash that I normally use on my tabletop macro setup and held it in my hand, pointed at the stage while I took the picture. After a few shots I got the light balance (darkfield condenser from below and hand-held flash from the top) about right. Could have used an extra hand or two for this one.

Olympus 4/0.16 S Plan Apo, Canon 350D. Combination darkfield and top illumination with electronic flash.

Image

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

Charlie, even your grab shots look posed! :D

This is a beautiful snippet of "Life and Death in the Duckweed".

Thanks for posting!

--Rik

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

You know Rik, it really was a "grab" shot and I just shake my head when I try to imagine doing this with film. It was a little tricky getting the light sources balanced and finding a good position for the hand-held strobe. Every so often when something like this works out because of the instant feedback from the digital camera I remember how tricky it would be to do such a quick, impromptu setup with film!

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