Because you asked

I was asked a few days ago about the microscope I am using. Mark thought I had done a post on this before (I think I did, ages and ages ago), but it's time for an update. I'll include the camera and lens info, too.

My equipment is basic, bare-bones, not expensive. The camera I'm using now is the Nikon D7500, upgraded recently from the old D7000 that was becoming increasingly temperamental.

I have several lenses, but mostly use the basic kit lens, 18 - 55 mm, for outdoor photos, because I never know if I'm going for a scenery shot or a mushroom, and I will not change lenses on the go; I'm sure to get dust inside. Inside, for casual shots, I'll use this lens, too.

Oyster Bay, long-range shot. 18-55 mm., shot at 18 mm.

I usually have the camera set to automatic everything; again, I want to be able to switch from a look at a flower to swivel and attempt to catch a bird before it dives, and have the camera adjust for the constantly changing light direction and strength. I usually keep moving, so I don't have the time to sit down and wait with the camera on fixed focus; sometimes I try it, although with poor results; the diving birds absolutely refuse to come up in the spot I've focussed on.

Chia in a bag. 18 - 55 mm, shot at 28 mm.

For aquariium photos, I switch to my 40 mm. lens. Although the kit lens will do 40 mm., the fixed lens allows me to get up to within an inch or even less of my subject. For unplanned shots, the camera and lens are on autofocus, because my critters are constantly in motion. For real close-ups I set the camera to manual and zoom in the view screen to focus on smaller points. Mostly, I take dozens of shots to get one decent one; did I mention that these beasties are constantly moving?

Sometimes I do a minor focus stack, when two or three photos manage to get a critter in one position, with different areas in focus.

I have a tripod. I rarely use it.

Asian mud snail, Batillaria attramentaria, in aquarium. 40 mm., manual focus, with flash, two shot stack.

The 40 mm. lens is greedy for light. I use all the light I can get: flashlights, daylight from the window, house lights, tank lights. Sometimes I use the flash, with a second flash slaved to it, but at really close ranges, the lens itself casts a shadow just where I want the light. I keep telling myself I should buy a ring light, and never get around to it.

The microscope is a cheap hobbyist toy, the Celestron MicroCapture Pro. It zooms to 200x, is a bit difficult to focus, but connects to the computer, which my other handheld did not.

Mud snail operculum, under the microscope.

I use Photoshop Elements to process the photos. I shoot in RAW, to be able to make sure the colours are as close to what I see as possible. The camera's JPEGs are widely variable.

Basically, I correct the colour and lighting, reduce noise, and sharpen. Sometimes I take out a bit of extraneous material, like the plastic bottle I left in yesterday.

Moss on a rock. 18 - 55 mm. 55 mm. bright sun. Two-shot stack, with minimal editing.

On aquarium shots, I also have conflicting algae spots on the glass, bubbles and speeding copepods, a messy background, uneven lighting, a shallow range of focus. Sometimes I have to spend more time cleaning these up.

One thing I've noticed. I'm getting older. My hands shake more than they used to. I get tired sooner. I find it harder to balance on rocking logs or slippery seaweed; then it's not only my hands that are shaking; it's all of me. I lose more photos because of the shakes.

But my eyes are still good. And the world around me is still as beautiful and fascinating as ever.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Me preguntaron la semana pasada qué microscopio estoy usando. Mark pensaba que había escrito sobre eso en algún tiempo (creo que sí, pero hace siglos); ya era hora que me pusiera al corriente. Voy a incluir también los datos de la cámara y las lentes que uso.

Mi equipo es muy básico, económico, sin extras. La cámara que ahora tengo es el Niikon D7500, una nueva para tomar el lugar de la vieja D7000, que ya operaba cada vez más de mala gana.

Tengo varias lentes, pero uso principalmente la del kit original, de 18 a 55 mm., para fotos tomadas afuera de la casa, porque nunca sé si voy a estar tomando fotos de montañas o de honguitos, y me rehuso a cambiar lentes fuera de la casa; seguro sería que se me metiera algo de arena dentro de la cámara abierta. En casa, para fotos al azahar, uso esta lente también. 

Primera foto: Oyster Bay a marea baja, una distancia larga. La lente es la 18 a 55 mm., enfocada a 18 mm.

Casi siempre tengo la cámara puesta en modo automático, para todo; enfoque, luz, color, porque quiero poder cambiar instantáneamente de tomar una foto de una flor a voltear y tratar de capturar un pájaro antes de que se desaparezca, de mirar hacia la luz a dar la vuelta hacia las sombras. Casi siempre estoy en movimiento; no acostumbro sentarme con la cámara puesta en modo de enfoque manual. Algunas veces hago el intento, casi siempre con malos resultado porque los pájaros malcriados nunca salen a la superficie en el punto hacia donde estoy enfocando.

Segunda foto: la gata Chia en una bolsa de papel. La lente es 18 a 55 mm., enfocada a 28 mm.

Para fotos en el acuario uso la lente fija de 40 mm. Aunque la lente del kit podría enfocar a 40 mm., la lente fija me permite acercarme hasta a 2 cm. del sujeto. Si no tengo foto planeado, está puesta a enfoque automático, porque mis animalitos están en movimiento continuo. Para acercarme más, cambio a enfoque manual, y aumento la vista en la pantallita. Y saco docenas de fotos así para salir con una más o menos útil; ¿habré mencionado que estos bichos siempre se están moviendo?

A veces hago una unión de dos o tres fotos cuando un sujeto se queda casi sin moverse por unos minutos, así logrando tener enfocada una mayor parte del animal.

Tengo un tripode. Casi nunca la uso.

Tercera foto. Una caracol marino, Batillaria attramentaria en el acuario. La lente es 40 mm., enfoque manual, dos fotos con flash.

La lente de 40 mm. pide mucha luz. Uso todo lo que sea posible: luz del dia, luz de lámparas, luz del acuario, linterna. A veces puedo usar el flash, con un auxiliar que dispara al mismo instante, pero para fotos tomadas muy de cerca, la lente misma añade su sombra justo donde necesito la luz. Me digo siempre que debo comprarme una luz redonda para la lente, pero por alguna razón, siempre se me olvida.

El microscopio es casi un juguete, un microscopio "hobby", el Celestron MicroCapture Pro. Hace zoom hasta a 200 veces el tamaño natural, enfoca con una poca de dificultad, pero se conecta a la computadora, lo que no hacía el microscopio que antes usaba.

Cuarta foto: Otro caracol, mostrando su opérculo (la tapa que la encierra para esconderse).

Uso el programa de Photoshop Elements para procesar las fotos, porque saco fotos en formato RAW, para asegurar que las fotos salgan con los colores y la nivel de luz tal como las vi. En formato JPEG, las fotos salen muy variables.

Corrijo el color, la luz, bajo el nivel de ruido (manchas producidas por la cámara), y ajusto en enfoque un poquito. A veces borro un detalle que no debe estar en la foto, como la botella de plástico que no borré de la foto de ayer.

Quinta foto: musgo en una roca. Lente 18 a 55 mm., enfocada a 55 mm. Luz natural, dos fotos unidas, con modificaciones mínimas.

En las fotos en el acuario, también hay puntos de alga creciendo en el vidrio, burbujas, y copépodos nadando alrededor, un fondo algo enredado, niveles de luz variables, y una profundidad de enfoque limitado. A veces tengo que pasar más tiempo limpiando estas fotos.

Una cosa que se me ha presentado: me estoy haciendo vieja. Las manos me tiemblan más que antes. Me canso más. Se me hace más difícil balancearme sobre troncos inestables o sobre algas marinas resbalosas; en estos momentos no solo son las manos que tiemblan; me tiembla todo el cuerpo. Pierdo más fotos por estos temblores.

Pero los ojos todavía me sirven. Y el mundo alrededor es tan bello y fascinante como siempre.

Spider, fly, woodpecker holes

Every now and then I decide to make trouble for myself. Instead of the usual lenses I use on the camera - the kit lens, because it can handle small crabs and distant islands reasonably well (and it's lightweight; that counts when your bones are wearing out), or the 40 mm because it can focus and take a photo from an inch away; handy when I'm flipping stones with the camera in one hand, the stone in another. - sometimes I fit the camera out with the 85 mm. lens. It does better in the shade than the others, and lets me take photos of things like yesterday's butterfly without getting so close that I scare them away.

But it has its disadvantages: it has no zoom. It won't focus at all at short distances. It won't open up to take in a whole stump unless I'm so far away that there are a dozen other trees between me and it. It's almost hopeless on scenery. It doesn't like extremes of light and dark; it haloes branches in pink and blue.

But it challenges me to look at things in a different way. Helps me to notice things I might otherwise have missed. Allows me to take photos of small things that I can't quite get close enough to because of the terrain. And, as cameras do, it sees things that I could not.

I was hiking up the Ridge Trail, taking random shots at anything out of normal reach; a scrap of moss, a woodpecker hole, a distant shelf fungus, an oddly-shaped log. On the way up, there wasn't much else to see. I was following a bear's track, which the camera didn't think was as obvious as I did, and the patches of scraped-away duff and the moist sawdust under a log, fallen as the bear checked it for ants, weren't really photogenic. So: bits of moss on distant trunks. And the butterflies.

A tuft of moss on a tree a few metres away. And what I couldn't see: cladonia lichen and a spotted fly.

I have to use automatic focus away from home; without my glasses, I can't read the screen any more. So what I want and what the camera thinks is important sometimes conflict, and the camera wins. I found a small patch of periwinkles, already in bloom. I thought they were worth a photo; the camera saw, instead, a tiny spider beside one of them.

Blurry periwinkle, not-so-blurry spider, upside-down.

Blotchy brown shelf fungus, Interesting pattern. Moss, lichen, ferns.

Woodpecker snag. As shot. Looks rather spooky to me.

If you zoom into this photo, you can see the pink tips on the huckleberry shrub on the left.

More tomorrow.

Gotcha!

Walking among the tidepools, I see trembling in the water a few metres ahead; small critters, fish and crabs sensing my presence and racing for cover. By the time I reach the pool, it's apparently empty. Seaweeds stand unmoving, a few shells lie abandoned here and there (when I pick them up and wait a while, they sprout legs; they weren't so abandoned after all.) There are no crabs, no fish.

No matter how long I wait, standing beside a tidepool, the fish don't show up; they see my shadow.

My camera usually wears the 40mm lens, good for getting within an inch of a tiny critter, or the old kit lens, which zooms, but is not good at detail. This time, I used the 85mm lens; it does not zoom, does not permit me to take photos at distances less than a metre or so, (so no rock-flipping - snap photo before everything scrambles for cover photos) and has a shallow depth of field. But it does let me take a fairly decent shot of a small critter from a distance.

So I sat a couple of metres away from a few tidepools until the residents decided I must have gone home or turned into a rock, and ventured out again. Still too close; moving to aim the camera was enough to send everyone back into hiding. But I got one photo of a tiny fish.

Baleful glare: In about an inch of water. The fish is an inch or so long. There is also a baby hermit crab near the edge of the photo.

Two grainy hand hermits, cautiously emerging from the shells. I moved too close, and they hid again.

I see many of these shells empty on the beach. I brought some home, but my hermits refused to use them. They like shells with a rounder opening. Now I think I know why; most of my hermits are Hairies, Pagurus hirsutiusculus, and these two are Grainy Hands, P. granosimanus. I'll bring home a few of the larger ones (my grainies are big guys) and see if they get used.

On the underside of a stone. Lay the stone down, step back a metre, aim; everything fast is gone. the big Wosnesenski's isopods are leaving as fast as they can go. Only the little stubby isopods have stayed put, pretending to be pebbles.

I see these sea slaters (aka beach cockroach) often just above the tide line. They are very shy, extremely fast, and are hidden long before I'm in range. I got these from about three metres away.

Just rocks and the dropping tide.

Busy, busy!

More test shots; back to the aquarium and live critters again.

This first photo is as taken; despeckled, resized, and sharpened only. I left the "dust" in place; it's part of the action.

In the upper levels of the tank, like it would be on the intertidal flats, everything is in constant motion. Here, the red algae sways in the water, and a small family of blue anemones glued to a fragile blade waves its tentacles, hoping to catch some of the swimmers that muddy up the current. Behind, bubbles dance; large ones going down, from the pump; small ones heading back up to the surface, carrying goodies collected en route. Released at the top, the goodies float back down; more specks in the water.

This red algae gathers "dust". I pour clean water over it, or take it out and swish it around in fresh water, and it looks beautifully clean. A few minutes back in the tank, and it's covered in these little specks. Some may be sand, some is detritus, leftovers from critter meals or floating fragments of rotting eelgrass, and the rest is made up of small animals, copepods and amphipods eating detritus, and tiny worms eating copepods and amphipods.

And I hadn't even noticed the hermit until I looked at the photo. There's usually one or two hidden somewhere in this mess.

Everything going at once

On the other end of the tank, and up close to the wall, things are more peaceful.

Leafy hornmouth snail, Ceratostoma foliatum, sleeping.

The water is clearer away from the current; I removed only a handful of swimmers and a scratch on the glass. This snail eats barnacles; in between times, he wanders around the walls, then goes to sleep for a day or so.

His shell started out white and pink, but as he grows it gets craggier and darker. He's beginning to show the "leaves" that give him his name; for now, they're just sharp lengthwise ridges.

Setup for these photos: black poster board behind tank, white reflector above and on both sides, spotlight aimed at top reflector, flash ditto. This seems to work on the upper levels, but not down on the sand. More experimentation needed.

More practice shots: white on white

I'm still learning how to use the new gear, working with different settings and configurations of camera, lens, and reflectors. I decided it would be simpler to practice on something that was not constantly getting in fights, or wandering off for a bite to eat, or just turning his back on me. Not a hermit nor a shrimp, in other words.

I chose, instead, an old sea urchin test, without its spines, and a sprig of dried everlasting flowers.

This first photo is as it came out of the camera; no processing at all, other than resizing for the blog.

Almost lace. And there are a few remnants of spines, after all.

For this next one, I changed the aperture and moved in closer. That produced some noise, which I partly removed in processing. Still, there was minimal work to be done; despeckling, cropping, resizing.

Close-up of urchin buttons and holes. I think they're where the spines were inserted.

And the everlasting; again, with minimal processing; removing a dust speck, resizing, sharpening.

White on white, with hints of pink.

I'm pleased. Depth of field is still something to work with; for example, on the urchin, every part that curves away from the camera is out of focus. And the lens definitely loves light. For these, I had the flash, a spotlight, general room lighting, a white sheet, whiter paper, and two big white reflectors (one is the lid of a big plastic bowl; what works, works.)

More practice shots tomorrow; something alive, again.

Testing, testing

Seeing what my new reflector and light blockers will do. A few shots with the old lens, no flash.

Plumose anemone in full feeding mode

Browns and greens

"Missed my exit again!"

Flash used here, with white reflector and black backdrop. One of the small anemones.

I've been working with the new lens. It's more demanding, has a very shallow depth of field, and stringent light requirements, but it brings out details that I'd never seen before. I'll have more test shots tomorrow.