Oh, I like those - lovely inclusions. My long-ago mineralogy agrees that rutile is a likely suspect

Thanks, Leonard. My camera doesn't have the ability to stack frames internally, it's just an entry-level model. I have been shooting manual focus in the sequence you described, starting at the nearest and working toward the furthest. I'm using the manual focus rack to adjust each frame's focus thru ...

Very nice; I particularly like the second image in your re-post. Leonard That is one of my favorites as well. It's also a 100% crop from this image: https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/c8eec5eb-5a15-47a9-b568-e9589f922b00/de8ws1x-8b6822f6-7868-4c46-89c3-10293b6c2fea.jpg/v1/fil...

I did manage a bit more magnification, and a deeper stack today. My wife's camera kit has an old 1.4 TC (late '70s vintage) that I'd forgotten about, so I can get 126mm at the cost of some image quality. This one is a 15 frame stack, but it looks like I pushed Focus Stacker past its limits in the co...

Very nice subject and image. I wonder if you could be able to show a deeper stack, a stereo pair also would be most enjoyable Thank you :) If I can find that particular spot again (that bit took some damage) I can try for a deeper stack. At this stage in my (very beginning) skill level I would have...

Another of my lava samples from the 2018 Kilauea eruption. This time it was seeing what I could get with a piece of tephra - the very light, very fragile ejecta that is shot up in the air from the lava fountains, cools very rapidly, and falls like ash everywhere in the area. It's so light because th...

Looks like some serious cross-species stuff was kickin' it up between the bunnies and the buggies! Those are some odd looking critters indeed.

But I really like the image!

VERY cool images and mineralogy!

A view of some lovely frothy, almost pumice-y, basaltic lava from Kilauea's Lower East Rift Zone 2018 eruption. This is a stack of four frames (Focus Stacker on my Mac). Pentax K-50 w/ Tamron 90mm Macro, LED lighting in a tabletop lightbox. Four x f/8, ISO 100 https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca88777...

Worked with a fist-sized mass of crystalline pyrite today. Sat it on a fence rail out on the deck, natural shaded light. Tripod and focus rail, Pentax K-50 w/ Tamron SP Di 90mm Macro. Images stacked on the Mac using Focus Stacker and a bit of editing in Gimp. Hopefully the links won't be a problem t...

Thank you. I agree, the URLs from that site are horrible. They made changes a while back and now we are stuck with that vs a decently short address. I did try a couple of times to get it right here, using the preview function, but could't get it. After submitting, I finally had to go back, resave th...

Not microscopic, just micro... The rock is a remnant washed out of some Puget Sound glacial deposits. Tentatively identified as a limestone (poss.) turbidite sequence. The field of view is about a half inch across. Surface was painted with water for the 7 shot sequence, stacked in 'Focus Stacker' on...

That is just flat-out gorgeous...

Agreed, if I can rearrange things to do so...

Thanks for all the ideas and suggestions. I think I'll try using boiled water first, and drop the rock in for at least part of the time. The edges of the dish are far enough from the rock that surface curvature is negligible, depth of water at the shallowest over the rock was 2-3 mm. Setup is shown ...