Lamproderma sp. (slime mold)

[hkv]

Lamproderma sp. A genus of slime mold. Here we can see the fruiting body that has partially erupted, revealing the inside details. A close-up of the surface highlights the remarkably thin peridium (skin), so delicate that the texture and shape of the spores are visible through it. Scanning electron micrograph. Colorised in Photoshop.

I added a few crops of the main image as it has 15 times more resolution than what I can display here.

Full fruting body. The total width of this image represents 1.86 mm:

slimemold-2 by Håkan Kvarnström Photography, on Flickr


Close-up of the peridium (skin). Around 7700X magnification. The total width of the images represents 50 µm:

slimemold-1 by Håkan Kvarnström Photography, on Flickr


slimemold-5 by Håkan Kvarnström Photography, on Flickr


slimemold-4 by Håkan Kvarnström Photography, on Flickr


slimemold-3 by Håkan Kvarnström Photography, on Flickr

[Beatsy]

That's some awesome colourisation! Very natural looking. Must have taken quite some time to do it, right?

Cheers
Beats

[hkv]

That's some awesome colourisation! Very natural looking. Must have taken quite some time to do it, right?

Cheers
Beats

Yes, took me 1 hour to prepare the sample. 2-3 hours in total to photograph it with plenty of failed attempts where charging and drift ruined the image. 5-6 hours of colorisation in Photoshop. I really tried hard to get a natural looking colorisation. I cannot understand why so many SEMers use all these pastell color schemes for their images. Purple and green diatoms, etc. I can also use color, but it must then look like it is added by an external light. Like a touch of color as reflected from a studio light. Just as portrait and product photography. I tried to simulate that in the 7700X mag image.

[Sym P. le]

Great work. It really adds to my understanding of what I've been seeing over the years, though at much lower magnifications.

[hkv]

Great work. It really adds to my understanding of what I've been seeing over the years, though at much lower magnifications.

Thanks. Yet, you always want to get more magnification. When I zoom in at 100K and it starts to get blurry, I wish I had another 10X because you never stop wondering what comes next.

[Walter Piorkowski]

Thank you hkv for providing your images. They are a real joy for me to look at. I spent many years crawling amongst the decaying trees of my local forests finding and photographing slim molds. Many of my images were posted to this forum. Most of my efforts went towards capturing them when they were fresh plump and colorful. Once they had dried out, they were less attractive subjects and then had to be transferred to glass slide mounts to allow spores, capillitium and peridium to be seen under magnification.
Your amazing images provide a fresh new look and beauty to the world of the Myxomycetes. I hope that you will someday be able to capture images of the Genus Arcyria for its intricate capillitium or Genus Trichia for its ropelike elaters. They would make some amazing images a well. These are members of the Order Trichiales, Family Trichiaceae.
Walt

[jmc]

Fabulous photos, thanks for sharing. I agree with other comments about the colourisation. Nicely natural looking and really well done.

[hkv]

Thank you hkv for providing your images. They are a real joy for me to look at. I spent many years crawling amongst the decaying trees of my local forests finding and photographing slim molds. Many of my images were posted to this forum. Most of my efforts went towards capturing them when they were fresh plump and colorful. Once they had dried out, they were less attractive subjects and then had to be transferred to glass slide mounts to allow spores, capillitium and peridium to be seen under magnification.
Your amazing images provide a fresh new look and beauty to the world of the Myxomycetes. I hope that you will someday be able to capture images of the Genus Arcyria for its intricate capillitium or Genus Trichia for its ropelike elaters. They would make some amazing images a well. These are members of the Order Trichiales, Family Trichiaceae.
Walt

Thank you! I will for sure look out for the genus you mentioned, Arcyria and Trichia. Slime molds are very photogenic and are fund to photograph.

[hkv]

Fabulous photos, thanks for sharing. I agree with other comments about the colourisation. Nicely natural looking and really well done.

Thanks, I try hard to get natural colors, but my limited skills in photoshop makes life difficult sometimes.


Myxomycete-10 by Håkan Kvarnström Photography, on Flickr

[WojTek]

very nice