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Post by downundermoths on Jun 16, 2011 22:52:28 GMT -8
Nice photograph, Claude... The lighting looks OK to me   Barry Attachments:
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Post by nomihoudai on Jun 17, 2011 0:31:17 GMT -8
OMG Barry, have you used white balance on my previous specimen ? That looks horrible >Why the blue background though? I tend to go with the standard universal grey or sometimes a black background if the moth has white fringe. Micro moth have pretty much all of them white or close to white fringes, and the blue brings out these structures the best ! I don't have black here to test unfortunately but I bet it will give the moth an unusual darkened touch, I have once used a black background and the colors where odd. Of course blued does change the moth colors too to some extent but more into a grey metallic shine than something odd. Also blue is not a part of most moth color range ( in Europe ) and you get to see immediately where scales miss, I wanted to show that too and not hide stuff. Additional note: the two lines the moth is resting on are 2 hairs from my head, you also see them best with the blue background. I will post later this afternoon the whole setup when I found a second camera. Attachments:
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Post by nomihoudai on Jun 17, 2011 1:46:43 GMT -8
Ok here comes the setup now. I went for the copystand I initially wanted, I got it used off ebay. For the camera I choose a Nikon D5000 which I can manipulate trough live view and with my laptop with " Camera Control Pro 2 " by Nikon. This programm is great as it gives me the possibility of focusing as good as possible as I see the specimen much much larger on my screen than I ever would on the camera screen. (Altough I don't recommend the D5000 for anyone wanting to do macropics with better resolution than this, the mirror has some malfunction which means that the mirror does close and open when takign a pic even in live view which is useless!! It only produces vibration, if you can afford it go for a cam with mirrorlock function.) Then came the problem what lens system to use ? After I read trough the microphotography forums posted above I saw that the only way to go was a macro bellow system, and thus a Nikon PB-6 for my Nikon. Unfortunately Nikon doesn't produce any bellows anymore so that it took until now that I got one of them off eBay. It can be extended up to 20 cm and I operate it with the old 50mm 1/1,  Nikkor lens. Make sure you don't use the new 50mm 1/1,8G Nikkor! It produces great pics but G means that the aperture is not changeable manually and that is a must have with the bellows as they don't transmit electrical signals and everything has to be operated manually. (Of course you can put the G lens onto it but it will fix to open aperture which is not good, you need a small aperture opening for sharp pics ) Attachments:
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Post by nomihoudai on Jun 17, 2011 1:55:47 GMT -8
The specimen gets then put onto a plastic piece that I got off a 0,5L plastic bottle, this is the cheapest piece of the setup ;D I cut of the sides and let just one ring and 2 longer horns stay. Then I glued 2 hairs onto the horns about 5 mm appart. On top of these I let my specimen rest. The hairs can be removed very easily and fast with the photoshop healing brush. I also need a lot of light in my setup, therefore I got a used set of Nikon Macroflashes, they are also great for out in the forest as I can attach them to the lens directly but in this setup I have to put them left and right of the specimen. In order to produce best pics they have to be put a little higher of the specimen and then shoot at the specimen at a flat angle. This produces shadows a the sides of the scales which is the reason why you can see them so well! A good flash is essential for the setup as the bellows are hungry for light. I hope some people enjoy the setup now and might want to try something similar, photographing microleps is not an easy task. For the future I might want to try to get a black cone of paper around the specimen holder and put a white background under the specimen in order to try to get shadow free and backgroudn free pics where you still can see the hairs well ( white background fits better in publications ) Attachments:
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Post by nomihoudai on Jun 17, 2011 3:02:58 GMT -8
And here is the view I get trough my laptop, I could even use the camera now in live view mode as a helping assistance for mounting the very tiny specimens, there is enough space between lens and specimen for operating things. Only thing left to do now is finding a Nepticulidae and test the setup with the most difficult possible. Attachments:
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Post by downundermoths on Jun 17, 2011 5:29:56 GMT -8
I feel quite ashamed that I don't own any of that fancy equipment... All my Facebook and InsectNet piccies are taken in my den using normal fluorescent light and by holding the subject at arms length pinned on a piece of plastazote. The camera is an old 5mp Canon S2 IS set on auto with telephoto off, held in my other hand. The only luxury I afford myself is the pop-up camera flash. I then crop the picture and perhaps adjust the light/or midtone + contrast... Barry Attachments:
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Post by downundermoths on Jun 17, 2011 5:38:42 GMT -8
...the result before text is added... Attachments:
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Post by nomihoudai on Jun 17, 2011 6:15:14 GMT -8
And now try this with a 10 mm micro No need to feel ashamed in any way Barry, your pictures are great and I do enjoy them very much and would like to see more of them on insectnet but if you look at the title of the topic and my first post you see the word "MICROlepidoptera". That is what this topic is about, taking good and proper butterfly pics is difficult but you can do it with conventional equipment and some experience, but everything of this doesn't hold anymore once you go micro. Therefore I opened this topic because in February I had absolutely nooo clue how to get a decent pic of them. Now I seem to know, but new problems arise, like propper mounting  Here is a size comparison with something you are familiar with and the above shown moth Attachments:
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Post by downundermoths on Jun 17, 2011 13:42:24 GMT -8
 I did feed it to the assembled multitude, Claude, knowing that someone might spot the size difference... To be fair to you I will include a 'micro' moth picture later... Congrats on starting another very good topic Barry
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Post by jackblack on Jun 30, 2011 2:32:34 GMT -8
I think you have to do stack. Here I am posting an image at low resolution of a Buprestidae (Acmaeoderella gibbosula). It is 3 mm in leght. I obtained the image with a Nikon D90, 3 Kenko extension tubes, 85 mm MicroNikkor lens and ring flash Nikon SB-29. BUT I had to take about 10 shots in sequence at different focus depth, and later I obtained an all-in-focus image with CombineZM, a freeware software of stacking. Light is also important, as correctly underlined by Chris in his interesting posting. I use as diffuser a plastic glass without the bottom. It's enough to obtain a diffuse light, less shadows and a good resolution of scales.  Uploaded with ImageShack.us |
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Post by Chris Grinter on Jun 30, 2011 22:25:28 GMT -8
I'm still of the opinion that a light grey or even the dark grey background is better. The image of the tort that downundermoths posted is a good example. You are right that the blue looks better in your images, but this might be due to a lower level of light hitting the specimen and the blue gives a better contrast. But it is overpoweringly and unnaturally blue IMHO. If you can get more light onto the grey image you might make the moth pop out more as in downunder's shot. Don't mean to be critical, just splitting hairs!
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Post by nomihoudai on Jul 1, 2011 0:10:04 GMT -8
I am fine with splitting hairs Chris, this is what this topic is intended too in order to get the best possible results. I don't share the opinion that more light will get better results with grey background at the moment for the reason that I have already tried more light. My flashes have not been at full power and I can get them so strong that the whole picture is only white and that you burn your fingers when getting too close to them. They have different power levels and when I go to the next level the black color of the last Glyphipterigidae ( the one where I changed background color) will turn into a very transparent brown, but that is not natural...if you are holding the specimen in your hands it clearly is black in natural light. I post here a prime example of bad lighting. The first pic of a Phyllonorycter with my sensitive way of lighting and blue background in order to show every hair on the specimen. The second picture "stolen" from a German ID site where the guy "brute forced" the hairs with his flash. ( www.lepiforum.de/cgi-bin/lepiwiki.pl?Phyllonorycter_Quercifoliella ) Look at the colors in the forewing, the orange brown tone I got is the natural one of the specimen, the other one is near to overexposed in my eyes. Also any color information in the hindwings hairs got lost, in mine you can see that at the top of the hindwing the hairs are more orange, in the other pic you can only guess it after seeing mine. Attachments:
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Post by nomihoudai on Jul 1, 2011 0:15:55 GMT -8
Here is a second example, my picture is very bad but I am not at home with my new camera device and the picture has been taken with a previous setup that was nowhere near finished. I only want to show again that there is more orange etc. in the forewings that just got lost in the second pic. Personally I also dislike using a blue background, it is against what we are used to, unhandy for books and publications, and when somebody posts a Rhopalocera with blue background I simply get eye cancer from it, but if it will give the best results I will stick to it. In two weeks I will have holidays and can check out my setup for 3 months and then I will also try if I can't get it working with grey background or even white background, maybe I need to put more black sheets around to get black reflections at the side of the small hairs in order to make them viewable. p.S. jackblack. we can't see your post, if you are asking for a stacking Software try Zerene stacker. Attachments:
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Post by downundermoths on Jul 1, 2011 23:45:57 GMT -8
You are right, Claude...it is not as easy as it sounds. I have just tried my first hand-held pics of some micros from my collection. I am very unhappy with the detail and the background, and will have to do many more trials Barry Attachments:
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Post by nomihoudai on Jul 3, 2011 7:35:51 GMT -8
Awesome species, thx for sharing the picture! Imagine now you would try something really small because Pyralidae are not that small, Atteva neither... now you can understand my problem |
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Nikkor lens. Make sure you don't use the new 50mm 1/1,8G Nikkor! It produces great pics but G means that the aperture is not changeable manually and that is a must have with the bellows as they don't transmit electrical signals and everything has to be operated manually. (Of course you can put the G lens onto it but it will fix to open aperture which is not good, you need a small aperture opening for sharp pics )
