This was backlit from one of the flash heads on my macro twinflash. I generally find I have to increase the contrast by adjusting the levels quite harshly in RAW processing when I shoot with this kind of lighting).
Secondly an extreme closeup of a Daffodil petal, shot with an extremely cheap 40x microscope objective (came as part of my second hand Brunel compound scope, grand total cost of whole scope inc p&p around $80, so I figure this objective owes me about $5!). Working distance - literally nil. Pure backlighting.
Again, pretty agressive levels tweaks in RAW processing to enhance contrast and bring out a little detail. This is a single shot, I've had no luck stacking these shots so far, I think I will have to try a completely manual stack but not enough time for now!!
Any idea what we are looking at here, are these cells in the plant? I've noticed with the 20mm lens, when looking at pretty much any plant matter at decent magnification, that it always appears to be made up of these little blobs, but I don't know what they are, I do know they seem to cause major problems to both Helicon and CombineZM...
Edited to add:
First shot is a stack of around 6 shots.
With both these subjects I mounted them onto microscope slides, but I have no cover slips so for the first shot I mounted the subject between two slides.. For the second shot the working distance of that objective is less than the thickness of a slide, I could not focus on the subject with a slide above it, so I left the subject mounted on a slide with no cover (sort of clipped in place).
