Insects in baltic amber

[Tonikon]

Hi everyone,
a few days ago, I received a couple of very very small insects in baltic amber. The baltic amber, also called "succinite", dates from 44 million years ago (during the Eocene epoch) and frequently includes fossil insects.
I bought these two small specimen only to "experiment" to photograph them...after some attempts I have decided to photograph them dry with trasmitted and reflected (fifty-fifty) led lighting.
I also take this opportunity to give you all my best wishes for this Christmas holiday.
Toni

[Scarodactyl]

Wow, those came out great!

[MarkSturtevant]

Those are very nice! I have some insects in baltic amber, and a big hunk of copal with insects. Its been a long time since I've looked at them, and I think I should.

[Tonikon]

They are very interesting to photograph, as well as to observe.
The correct arrangement of the lighting setup is essential to have a good photograph: the light must be strong and directional, but the shape of the amber can cause many reflections.
I have not found any improvement using glycerol immersion.
Toni

[bralex]

Very nice photos, and a fascinating subject!

[MarkSturtevant]

You obviously know about how to do this. But I was curious on the subject of photographing insects in amber, and found this online paper about methods for doing this sort of thing: https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... s_Scotland.
Apparently, the amber can be placed in baby oil, and this is helpful since its refractive index is similar to amber.

[Tonikon]

Hi Mark and thank you very much for the linked paper...I have found other similar article, but this is new to me.
Effectively, in my experience, the immersion in oil can be helpful if the top surface of the amber in not well levigated and presents scratches, cracks or lack of flatness.
The best approach is to immerse the specimen in oil (glycerine is better than baby oil because it has greater transparency imho) and to photograph the inclusion by a water immersion objective (like the uncommon and not cheap Nikon W-series) so that eliminate the intercafes air-oil or air-resin, but that make things much trickier.
But when I bought my two Baltic Amber samples, I chose the ones with the smoother and more regular upper surface, so oil immersion was not so much helpful...
Now I hope to buy other samples and to experiment again ... it's always exciting to photograph insects over 40 million years old so perfectly preserved!
Ciao
Toni