Yes John (and others),

This can be a magnificent way of taking pictures of microshells

Since discovering this, about two months back, I have taken literally
hundreds of pictures of microshells, some of which will be published in the
upcoming issue of Australasian Shell News.

The method is very simple. Because digital cameras, even the more expensive
models, come with very limited (pathetic?) optics, you cheat and use the
optics of the microscope instead. Because the digital camera has such a
narrow lens, you can actually hold it right up to the eyepiece of the
microscope. Then you wriggle around until you get a good view of the shell
on the screen and simply press the button. Of course you have to turn the
flash off, and also the more light you can get on your subject the better.
I actually make sure the shell is in full unfiltered sunlight, and place a
piece of white paper to reflect the light back onto the 'shadow' side. It
also helps to turn off the automatic light meter to allow you to take
pictures at the maximum  f-stop for better depth-of-field. I use the
automatic focusing feature without any problems. Just make sure the
microscope is in focus (i.e., the eyepiece that you are actually going to
take the picture through). For the background, I made a piece of black
'blue-tack' by mixing some ink with it. It still looks rather tacky, but
because it is all dark and contrasts with the shell, it is easily replaced
by a background colour of your choice in a graphics editing package. I
found this much easier than trying to achieve a completely black background
in the photograph by trying to balance a 2mm shell on top of a pin, in the
right position without any of the pin showing (AARGHHH, I don't have
patience for that!)

regards

Patty


Dr. Patty Jansen

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