1. (Relaxing) Dead insects are stiff and brittle, so they have to be 'relaxed'... Yes, I'm familiar with relaxing (of all kinds :-) ). Certainly worth mentioning though. But in this case, "freshly thawed" *is* relaxed, with the added benefit that small soft parts (halteres, footpads etc) are also i...

Squeezing a picture (any picture) out of what proved to be a problematic specimen. Not to mention the several even-more problematic ones that preceded it! Does anyone know how to open the mandibles on a dead ant (freshly thawed)? I ended up with a pile of broken ant-heads and gave up in frustration,...

All very nice, but I especially like the first one.

The stack is standard stuff, 50x mitty on a rail. The diatom prep was pretty straightforward too. I just stuck it to a small glass bead melted onto the end of a capillary tube and bunged that in front of the mitty. I love it! "Standard stuff", "pretty straightforward", but describing a result that ...

The stereo is remarkably free of streaky artifacts. I'm not even seeing any glitches that are typical of retouched stereo. Is this entirely due to carefully apodized illumination, or is there some other magic? --Rik There's no magic I'm aware of Rik. Diffuse lights shining on one side of a ping pon...

The "...just a good photo" part is key. A little background: I have a deep and ongoing (but wholly good-natured) disagreement with a friend at our camera club. He says I should make sure people know that the "thing in the picture" is only a quarter of a millimetre tall so that they are completely w...

Saul wrote:Very impressive stereo ! What software was used for stacking & stereo ?

The incomparable Zerene Stacker, of course. Accept no substitutes!
(either Paypal or cash will be fine Rik... )

Thanks everyone for your comments - appreciated as always. How did you setup for that? The stack is standard stuff, 50x mitty on a rail. The diatom prep was pretty straightforward too. I just stuck it to a small glass bead melted onto the end of a capillary tube and bunged that in front of the mitty.

I really like when an extreme macro photo looks as if an ordinary 0.02 mm tall photographer has taken an picture with his ordinary 0.001 mm big camera. No problems, just a good photo. Troels, you have absolutely made my day! Thanks for that comment. In one short phrase you described *exactly* the c...

Despite using every last diatom from an old keeper slide, I still have a pile of them left (I'll fetch my coat...)

The scene was constructed to simultaneously show the view from "inside" as a reflection. I'm rather pleased how it turned out. A 300-image stack shot with a 50x mitty running 33.75x onto crop mode sensor. http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/userpix/3490_Final_retouched_triceratiumsharpenstabilize_...

I'd been wondering where you'd got to Charles. Great to see the usual gorgeous images again!

I really like that. Nice and tidy with no random blobs of pollen all over the shop. So "good timing" for that too - or good post-processing skills !

Glossy black under all lighting condition by eye. These colours under very diffused white light. FoV is about 2mm wide.
Sony A7rii in APS-C crop mode, 20x Mitty @ 12.5x - stack and stereo.

I like these "all round" sequences. Lots of interest. Nicely done.