Papillio ulysses II (good eye Craig!)

Images taken in a controlled environment or with a posed subject. All subject types.

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Charles Krebs
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Papillio ulysses II (good eye Craig!)

Post by Charles Krebs »

I had to smile when I thought of Craig trying to find the location of the second shot I posted yesterday of the Blue Mountain Swallowtail. It can be tricky when all you have to go by is a very close shot.

This is the reason I really try to study these wings in detail with a stereo scope before trying to photograph them. This is a magnificent butterfly... but even even on ones that at first appear a little "dull", there are usually a few locations that are particularly interesting and appealing when looked at closely.

Here is a slightly more "overall", and then an even "tighter" look at the section seen in the second image of yesterdays post.
The blue scales are iridescent, which makes them a little funky to photograph when they are illuminated to show this characteristic.
(As can be seen here: http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... php?t=5281)

28/4 Schneider Componon reverse mounted on bellows, Nikon D300
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Nikon 40/0.50 M Plan ELWD on bellows, Nikon D300
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Cyclops
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Post by Cyclops »

Great shots Charles. Remind me of multi coloured shingles on the side of a roof.
Canon 5D and 30D | Canon IXUS 265HS | Cosina 100mm f3.5 macro | EF 75-300 f4.5-5.6 USM III | EF 50 f1.8 II | Slik 88 tripod | Apex Practicioner monocular microscope

lauriek
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Post by lauriek »

Stunning work Charles! So do you think 40x is pushing the limit of what you can do on a bellows? ;)

Cyclops, quite right, I hadn't noticed that before but Lepidopteran wing scales do look a lot like roof tiles of some sort!

Charles Krebs
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Post by Charles Krebs »

Laurie,

The 40X objective is about as far as I wish to actively pursue. (Although if a 60X ELWD or 100X SLWD were to fall into my lap, well... :wink: )

My "take" on using microscope objectives like this is that the 10X and 20X are the most useful. They can get you shots that just can't be obtained with more conventional macro optics (mainly in terms of resolution, because of larger effective apertures).

Objectives of power less than 10X seem less necessary, as there are other macro optics that meet (or exceed) the largest effective apertures found on objectives. And with lower magnifications it's not always necessary to work at maximum aperture, so it is possible to make good use of an adjustable aperture at times.

The 40X can be fun, but for me it gets used far less than the 10X and 20X. For one thing, the numerical aperture is not much larger than the 20/0.40 (0.50 on the ELWD, with the SLWD version it is the same). As a result, there is not a huge bump in detail recorded compared to the 20X. When I compare a 40X shot to the same subject taken with 20X (and cropped out to the same area), the 40X does look a little better, but not as much as some might expect. Some subjects are a nightmare with the 40X; others (like certain wing-scale shots or things like the eyes seen here work fine with the 40X and could likely be worked nicely with with even higher magnification objectives.

Well... the temperature has dropped about 25 degrees (F), so it's back to my chores... :cry:

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