Really small critters

I finally spent the time to replace the rather expensive incandescence bulbs in my Nikon Model M with high intensity LED lamps (using a small desk lamp from Ikia).  The result were better than I expected!  Here is a dark field image of some rotifers that were in a dish filled with rain water in my flower garden.

They are not sharp since they are moving rather rapidly, but all in all they don't look bad!

Soon......

Many of my summer garden seeds have germinated and are thriving in the garage!  It is predicted to be in the 70's most of this week, so maybe I can get started turning the soil.  I checked my garden yesterday, and the winter greens (spinach, kale, arugula) are still thriving, and a number of plants that normally don't overwinter look like they will revive if we don't get a late hard freeze.

Photoshop playtime

Mostly I was just bored, so I started playing around with the various blending modes in Photoshop.  I still don't understand them, but I like some of the things you can do.  This is actually a vertical panorama that didn't look very good, so I used the edit/fill command to fix the empty parts and then flipped part of the image and played with the blending.  Chances are I could never repeat the process!

Action Stereo

I love stereo photography (no kidding!).  Most of my images are taken using the so called "cha cha" method, where you take one photo and then shift the camera a few inches to the right for the second image.  One setup I have uses two Canon "point and shoot" cameras and software developed to override the built-in firmware.  This allows the cameras to be synchronized quite well, as shown by the ax in mid-flight below.

and in anaglyph...

These shots were taken at the Lincoln Village in Rockport Indiana.

I have no idea

Just another bug.  The total length of this one was about 12mm.  I am not sure why, but I thought his head and "shoulders" looks almost robot-like.  I guess I have been watching too many sci-fi movies.

The Blue Dragonfly

I have probably several hundred photos of dragonflies, most of them out of focus or otherwise not very pretty.  This one is not terribly good, but I like it anyway.  I shot this hand-held using my 70-300mm zoom with extension tubes.

 

Strange Shadows

I really like this image.  It is a panorama taken at Spring Mill State Park (about 9 images, total is about 200+ degrees) last summer.  While it looks like the shadows in the foreground are parallel, if you look closely you will see that the one in the center (from the column) is actually perpendicular to the two on either side (which are from the overhead viaduct).  Confusing isn't it!  It helps to remember that the viaduct is certainly not curved as shown in the panorama!

As always, you can click on the image to enlarge it.

Just another bug

This guy was on the window in my garage, so he agreed to a photo shoot (RIP).

I also decided to put him in stereo, so here is the "side" mug shot:

and the same thing in anaglyph.

Lint

That's right, lint--from the clothes dryer!  I guess you could say that lint from the clothes dryer is the cleanest dirt you can find....  Even though it looks like a gray mass, under a microscope it actually is an amazing collection of multicolored fibers and hair.

Click on the image to take a closer look.  In 3D it doesn't have enough resolution to really see it.

Vulture Humor

On a photo club outing we visited a quarry that was overrun with vultures!  In general they were not the least bit afraid of us as we walked a trail along the top rim of the quarry.  I took the first photo and Photoshopped the sign a bit to give it a bit more meaning.

As I walked up (to "Git Close To Edge") he finally took off, doing a graceful dive off the fence!

Another early spring flower

I keep noticing these small blue flowers which appear to be widespread in the neighborhood.  The flowers are only a few mm in diameter, but under the microscope they look lovely!  As nearly as I can tell they are a type of "Creeping Speedwell".  The images below were taken with my Nikon FS-2 using a new micrometer based system to get better resolution with my focus stacking.  Each of the photos was composed of over 30 individual images merged using Helicon Focus.

The photo above is fairly high resolution (click to enlarge), and the images below are side-by-side parallel 3D, followed by anaglyphs.

Looking at Photos

I was lucky enough to have several of my images selected for the annual School of Fine Arts -Bloomington Photography Club photo exhibit last year.  At the reception I snapped a photo showing the reflection of various guests and artists in the background.  My apologies to whoever the foreground photo belongs to (I know, copyright infringement!).  If someone recognizes their work let me know and I will credit them (it was a great photo).  It took a fair bit of Photoshop manipulation to bring out any of the details.

Click on the image to enlarge.