Lighting for macro photography of fern gametophytes

jsp · Post by **jsp** » Mon Oct 09, 2017 3:21 am

Here's another one, with a slightly older fern. I used the flashes this time, and my husband speeded up the rail motor so it takes only a very few minutes to take the whole stack. This was 1/60th second, about 60 slices, 17 microns apart.

Pau · Post by **Pau** » Mon Oct 09, 2017 4:56 am

Congrats, this is a big improvement! If there weren't some parts out of focus...

Once you get it all right, as your nice gametophytes are almost transparent, you can begin to experiment with rear illumination (back light) and mix of both.

jsp · Post by **jsp** » Mon Oct 09, 2017 5:11 am

Thanks, yes I'll aim to get the whole thing in focus next time. I didn't seem to have any trouble with collapsing cells this time so I should have a bit more leeway to get the edges in focus too now.

Thanks!

ChrisR · Post by **ChrisR** » Mon Oct 09, 2017 9:30 am

Glad the empty filters helped and it's coming together.

Steps at 1µm for 10x are finer than you need though. 5µm should be more than enough.

jsp · Post by **jsp** » Mon Oct 09, 2017 10:53 am

Hi ChrisR,

Thanks yes those extensions really helped immensely. The slices weren't sharp before but they are now.

The photos seem to work fine on 17 microns oddly. I didn't expect that.

Thanks!

jsp · Post by **jsp** » Mon Oct 09, 2017 10:59 am

Hi,

Somebody said to me that I ought to think about selling these images. I wondered if any of you discuss on here how to do that?

I've been very frustrated trying to find a science image library, to the point that I started one myself, but we don't get many customers yet. :-)

This is it:

http://chlorophyllosophyimages.blogspot ... brary.html

I just wondered if you all had better ideas of how to use your photos.

Thanks!

ChrisR · Post by **ChrisR** » Mon Oct 09, 2017 11:04 am

It would "work" at 17µ, but if you pixel-peeped with everything else spot on, you'd see an improvement going to about half that. I used to use 10 then went to 5.

jsp · Post by **jsp** » Mon Oct 09, 2017 8:25 pm

Hi Chris,

Thanks, I'll try that. Now that the motor is moving faster, I could probably do that without the fern getting too hot.

I just thought about the idea of how to get these images into text books and realised that it's probably quickest to write to my plant developmental biologist friends and show them the images. I reckon if they know they exist then they'll know where to come when they want them. :-)

Ta!

Adam Long · Post by **Adam Long** » Tue Oct 10, 2017 3:27 am

jsp wrote:Somebody said to me that I ought to think about selling these images. I wondered if any of you discuss on here how to do that?

Do you have reason to think they know what they are talking about? There seems to be a general perception among the uninformed that any half-decent photo is a potential goldmine. The reality is rather different.

Ten years ago there were a lot of niche photo libraries which had the potential for half decent return for specialist imagery. The web changed all that - new online libraries like Alamy used a crowd sourcing approach, while most of the specialist libraries were swallowed by the expansion of Getty. The number of images available increased a hundredfold and prices dropped accordingly.

You can put your pictures on Alamy simply by signing up and passing some basic QC. For other libraries you'd need to persuade them to take you on, naturepl.com would be the biggest surviving specialist I'm aware of.

Otherwise you could use a service like Photoshelter to create your own library with online sales built-in. Providing an article for a relevant journal might be a good way to raise awareness, or yes work your contacts.

In all cases good captioning and keywording is essential, and don't expect the return to reflect the effort. Stock is a numbers game. Most of the pros I know who used to make a decent return from stock are now running workshops instead.

jsp · Post by **jsp** » Tue Oct 10, 2017 5:15 am

Thanks, yes, I kjnow I'm never going to make my fortune from gametophyte fern images. It's just that the botany text books only have line drawings of gametophytes in them, and if I'm going to have these photos, I'd like to make sure that some of them make it into the text books so that students can see what the plants really look like.

Having typed my message before though, I realised that the last big plant development text book that came out had four names on the front, and three of them were people who are good friends of my PhD supervisor, so really what I should do is just email him.

Thanks for the names of the image libraries. That is very useful.

jsp · Post by **jsp** » Tue Oct 10, 2017 5:38 am

Having said that, I should probably publish my method before I go waving these photos about. :-)

Pitufo · Post by **Pitufo** » Sat Oct 14, 2017 1:26 pm

The images are looking much better now

jsp · Post by **jsp** » Sat Oct 14, 2017 2:03 pm

Thanks :-) I'm really chuffed that they are sharp now. The big one looks good printed too. :-)

I'm a happy person. :-)

jsp · Post by **jsp** » Sun Oct 15, 2017 7:05 am

The system has developed an entertaining error now where it just periodically fails to fire the camera shutter and I get blurred lines on the subject. Bizarre.

jsp · Post by **jsp** » Sun Oct 15, 2017 7:08 am

'nother photo. :-)