Macro-photography

Nice picture Dave, However I don't think this is T. Pallidum. It could not exist long out side the human body as its is the only known reservoir of the disease. I don't think it will exist in your hay infusion either but you might be right that this might be a Spirochaete. The other most important Spirochaete (there a several) that exist in nature that cause a significant medical problem in humans is Leptospira which causes Leptospirosis. It can be found in moist soil, water area, ponds, river, sewer, agriculture area (rice paddies) etc.

I'm not saying that the one you found is Leptospira but that's a possibility. It seems like you did a Dark Field microscopy, did you intend to look for Spirochaete? Last case of Weil's disease I treated was back home in the Philippines. Young farmer who waded across the field during typhoon season ended up with severe hepatic and renal failure. Barely made it out.

Very interesting. Keep it coming. Enjoyed it a lot.

Raphael

I'd be amazed if it was T.Pallidum because it didn't come from an animal source, which I generally avoid as a precaution. Otherwise I'm a bit gung-ho about bacteria because we're surrounded by them, some helpful, most neutral, and fortunately the nasty ones are rare, unless you're a doctor that is! But no way would I drink Hay Infusion water or want to get it in a cut - who knows what's in it!

I ought to have another go at Junior Bacteriology; I've got a few books covering research technique up to about 1930 which means a well-equipped laboratory isn't needed, just a decent microscope, test-tubes, and some dyes. The state-of-the-art described is rather primitive; one of them talks about 'non-filterable pathogens', ie it was written before the word 'virus' was coined. I find them far more readable than modern equivalents because the latter contain another century's worth of accumulated knowledge, and modern methods are far less accessible to amateurs.

Dave

Looking at all this magnification, it's amusing how many people getting into astrophotography as what 'magnification' their rig will give.

Now a the Andromeda Galaxy is 110,000 light years across and the image size might be 20mm across.

That's a magnification of about 2 x 10^-23

Neil

Hi Neil, that's interesting, can/does anybody know how much it's changed since the year 1023?

Regards Nick.

Now’s the time for a re-run of this, I think: ... **LINK**

https://www.eamesoffice.com/the-work/powers-of-ten/

MichaelG.

Hi, this thread has prompted me to spend some money, which was earmarked for a holiday, which ain't gonna happen this year, on a couple of camera accessories, which I took delivery of late this afternoon. One piece is a Canon EF25 II extension tube and the other is a EFS 35mm f/2.8 Macro IS STM lens. So after having a little read of the extension tube, fitted it to my EOS 400D body with a EF-S 18-55 1:3.5-5.6 II lens and took a couple of trial photos.

The first one was hand held but was a bit shaky, the subject yellow growth is about 7mm wide. The second one was with a tripod, but the light was dulling fast and the growth is about 5mm wide. Neither photo has been cropped or modified. Not bad for a quick first attempt, but a little practice may help. I think the new lens will probably need a bit more studying.

Regards Nick.

P.S. these are on a concrete fence post.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 26/05/2020 19:28:16

Neil, please feel free to post your Astro photography here as I feel its a very relevant subject with regards to magnification. It would be very interesting to know the ratio and proportion of the cosmos.

Michael thanks for the link.

Nick, congratulations. I'm sure you will have a blast doing more macro shots with your new lens. Brilliant pictures and subjects as always. Its fascinating what we all can find under our nose. Bringing it up with macro lenses opens up a new appreciation of things our eye seldom see. Good choice with the extension tubes. I'm waiting for mine to arrive. I would encourage you to read on photostacking to improve the depth of field of the pictures. Try a burst shot on a freehand shooting and do an image stack.

Raphael

Hi Raphael, thanks for your comments, it may take some time for me to get to grips with photostacking, but I'll keep it in mind, millions of things to do already, and I thought I'd have loads of time in retirement.

Regards Nick.

Have taken a few more pics with the NiSi lens but not uploaded then as yet. I am waiting for a set of extension rings and a ring flash I found on Ebay a few days ago. Will be interesting to see if I can use the NiSi lens and the extension tubes and get a picture that is in focus. Was trying to take pictures of the stamens in flowers yesterday but there was a very slight breeze, every time I achieved focus the wind blew and everything went out of focus.

This thread has certainly got everyone going and there are some fantastic pictures.

Colin

Another birdbath rescue, Raphael.

This time it was a Fiddler beetle - Eupoecila australasiae. **LINK**

Lots of 'free-style' swimming against a blue-glazed birdbath, it was difficult to follow. Fortunately, the camera has both an LCD and a viewfinder.

Uncertain of its potential to bite or poison me, it is unlikely I would have lifted it clear with my finger.

The image is a single-frame snapshot from a different video camera, a Canon Legria HF G40. I sold the Sony-HDR-CX405 when the far greater flexibility of the G40 caught my attention. It also sports the 58mm filter-ring thread and thus accepts a couple of my other bits. The latter were a part of the kit from the old digital Canon 300D I’d been using for years. More recently still were the two Canon close-up lenses.

With a passion for close-ups and long before I bought the 300D, I’d been using its roll-film predecessor and a Novoflex bellows, which I still use from time to time.

The electronics between the lens and camera, pass along a flexible printed circuit embedded in the folds of the bellows. Having the extra rack for camera positioning is very useful.

To skew this topic slightly, it might be an idea to show my crude slide-copier cobbled together when I was copying some of my extremely old (50's) Kodachrome slides. It features a Canon f/2.8 - 100mm macro USM lens.

Anyone interested?

Sam

Not sure what happened to my latest post.

However, I need to wake up. The cobbled-up slide-copier was described here ...

**LINK**

Call it another of my Senior's Moments.

"Must try harder!"

Now where did I hear that before?

I took this one in 2016 via Konus microscope and a phone. Looks almost sci-fi/steampunk. I think it was a mozzi. Too long ago now.

I'm not sure that this Adonis Blue butterfly taken yesterday at Martin Down NNR on the Hants/Wilts border really counts as a macro shot.

However it was taken with a 12mm extension tube behind my Tamron 150-600 zoom on a Nikon 7100. This combination works suprisingly well because although it won't focus at infinity I can still focus on a bird in tree 20m away as well a butterfly at my feet.

Stay well,

Rod

If anyone wants to have a play with focus stacking, PICOLAY is a free program. Is it better to move the camera while stacking or to use the focus ring ? Do you focus front to back or back to front ?

Have fun

Roy

A crystal in the urine of an individual with kidney disease. I took this in the 1980’s using a scanning electron microscope; so, may not be considered macro photography. Perhaps not as beautiful as some of the coloured photos already shown, but fascinating. At the time, I made 3D photos of normal and diseased tissues, which look amazing when looked at in a hand viewer or projected onto a screen. Hard to add 3D samples here.

.

It’s generally better to move the camera [or the subject], Roy

Order of stacking is not important, but It seems more intuitive to start at the front.

Increments should preferably be a little less than the depth of field

... but rules are there to be broken.

MichaelG.

.

That’s a great image, Raymond ... I would love to see it in 3D

If you post the two images separately, I’m sure we could pair them up for ourselves.

MichaelG.

+1

Posting the images separately - or, Raymond, simply putting them in your album with a note to that effect in a post here - would be fine for me.

My breath is bated.

Edited By Bandersnatch on 27/05/2020 16:24:04

Raphael,

Just a word of appreciation for starting this thread. It has been really, really interesting !

I will look out some stereo pairs and post them. At present I use a stereo projector and polaroid glasses, all a bit clumsy. I will separate some pairs and put them through my Nikon Coolscan to preserve the resolution. It would be great if someone could come up with a simple way of getting them onto a computer. I think that it would need red and blue/green filters as I cannot see how polaroid separation could work on a PC.