Stacked macro photograph of a fruit fly

[Ecooper]

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Almost exactly a month ago I posted a photo of a sow bug (order Isopoda) on my blog that I created from a stack of 57 separate images. But I was really unsatisfied with the photo and decided it was time to invest in more equipment. I ordered a 4X microscope objective off Ebay and started building a precision focusing rail out of a Zeiss Microscope Focus Arm. >>
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The focusing rail is now functional. The trickiest thing was figuring out how to provide soft, even lighting to a tiny specimen positioned only 14mm from the front of the lens while simultaneously avoiding lens flare. I also needed to find a suitably photogenic subject. Given that it was snowing on the day I took the photo below, a trip to the garden to look for tiny insects wasn’t an option!>>
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I had an epiphany yesterday morning while eating a small tub of yogurt and a banana. I finished the yogurt and realized that it was made from thin white plastic and was the perfect size and shape to fit over both the microscope lens and a specimen. All I had to do was to cut a hole in the bottom to insert the subject. Meanwhile a couple of fruit flies started to buzz around my banana...”aha” I thought, “my specimens have arrived!”>>
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Below is one of the photos resulting from a meeting of yogurt container and fruit fly. >>
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Cheers,>>
EC www.macrocritters.wordpress.com>>
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fruitfly 1 edit copyright ernie cooper 2012 crop 3_filtered by ernie.cooper, on Flickr>>

[hunter1958]

That is awesome!

[Ecooper]

That is awesome!

Thanks!

EC
macrocritters

[OldClicker]

Great idea with the yogurt cup - like a little light box.

[Ecooper]

Great idea with the yogurt cup - like a little light box.

Yep, that's exactly what it is! It worked perfectly too...

Cheers,
EC
macrocritters

[Photo-John]

Yep, that's exactly what it is! It worked perfectly too...

I agree - great idea. And obviously, it works great. The proof is in the pudding.

I may have asked you this before, EC, but would you be interested in doing a short tutorial for us on doing stacked macro photos like this? This is a very impressive photo and I'd love to see a step-by-step tutorial on how you did it.

Happy New Year!

[Don Schaeffer]

Wow. Beautiful. What equipment did you use?

[Erithacus]

Wow! Looks like it has been x rayed.

[Ecooper]

I agree - great idea. And obviously, it works great. The proof is in the pudding.

I may have asked you this before, EC, but would you be interested in doing a short tutorial for us on doing stacked macro photos like this? This is a very impressive photo and I'd love to see a step-by-step tutorial on how you did it.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! I'd be happy to! I'm still working out some of the "bugs" in my set-up (no pun intended) and just got some new lenses. As soon as I have some consistent results I'll put something together. How should I submit it?

Cheers,
EC

[Ecooper]

Wow. Beautiful. What equipment did you use?

This photo was taken with an Olympus e-620 DSLR attached to a vintage Olympus bellows which was mounted on a macro focus rail that I built out of a scrapped microscope. The lens was a Cnscope 4X microscope lens with the barrel removed. Lighting was a vivitar 283 flash diffused through a yogurt container.

Recycling at its best!

Cheers,
EC
macrocritters

[Dan143]

I am not really a fun of this kind of animals. But Your photo is great. It just captures the details of the insect clearly..

^_^ Love it.