Incidentally, how do you measure off-axis drift? I use several methods, which I will describe in a separate thread. This is now posted at https://www.photomacrography.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=46907 , "Methods to evaluate performance of a focus rail". --Rik Thanks Rik, I did see that and your t...

An excellent video from Anton Petrov. Well worth a look. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd-h_y1X4oA Yes - it's chemical signalling rather than talking, but communication between plants all the same. Anton posts mostly astronomy content. Always about intriguing new discoveries and every day without ...

Ooh, I like the look of that extension! I didn't know Godox offered it. I have two AD200s but lack of space prevents me (easily) using both at once on my rail setup. Those extensions would solve that. Thanks for the heads up.

Cheers
Beats

Hardly surprising that big media outlets use so much AI-generated imagery. They stopped representing reality a looong time ago! I have no beef with AI imagery when used in the right context (e.g. art or entertainment). But in areas that are supposed to be factual, i.e. news, documentaries or things ...

The science would suggest you need to resolve the wavelength of light that is reflected. That would put the blue scales beyond the reach of the TU Plan 50X. Maybe the Papilio blumei, a green species, would acheive the results sought (as the specs indicate the objective can resolve 0.5 μm.) ... Than...

Hi all, After acquiring a Nikon TU 50x/0.8 PlanAPO epi objective (at last) I discovered that the minimum 1µm steps of my rail aren't small enough to get the best from this lens. So, what better "justification" could one wish for to order a new rail that does smaller steps (MJKZZ Ultra Mini 2)? So I ...

Wow, that's a really interesting gizmo, and seemingly an answer to a long term daydream (faster capture of focus brackets), but... At what price? Probably swoon-inducing. The miniscule FoV (with relatively low resolution objectives) makes it significantly less desireable. And 70k frames/sec must sur...

Excellent result. The chunkier detail on the blue scales really lifts the whole image.

I found a long lost box of assorted butterflies today. I got them from a butterfly farm about three years ago and put them away safely. Too bloomin' safely!

Guess what I'll be shooting tomorrow

I swear my guess was: mag - about 1-2X and lens - some printing/scanning Nikon. I'm afraid I've lost the prize :( (there was a prize, right?) :D The SN7 is my fav low-mag lens for crop-sensor cameras and unarguably the best value for money out there. There was a prize. I'll trust your claim so you'...

Very nice capture - stripped back to the essentials to best convey what you saw. Impressive.

5x? Lens? A stacked combo, a 40mm stacked on a 200mm? Hi Robert, Only half an order of magnitude out on the magnification, but thanks for trying :D It's 1x. The lens is a scanner Nikkor ED 7 element. Exquisitly well reviewed and tested here ---> https://www.closeuphotography.com/scanner-nikkor-ed-7...

Hi all, Here's a 100% crop from a stacked image of a butterfly wing - generated to test a (very) recent lens acquisition. wing scales.jpg I'm super-pleased with this result. I expected good things, but not this good. A pleasant surprise indeed. The stack was captured using 4-shot pixel-shift on a So...

Welcome to the forum. All really good images but the harvestman stands out for me. Very nicely composed and captured. Cheers. Beats.

Happy new year all.

My first image of 2024 came out a bit SEM-ish. A happy accident.

I like the way the pores actually look like holes instead of raised dots, for a change. Just a brightfield focus stack shot at 100x, then inverted in post.

Cheers

Very nice "contextual" image! Does "recently emerged" account for the slightly crinkled appearance of the wings - as in, not yet fully "inflated"? Or do mature adult wings appear that way too? Makes a nice church window effect, whatever it is. Lovely.