MicrobeHunter.com Microscopy Forum

Pat I am sure you will be really pleased with John B's slides. For your further consideration let me suggest a great book: A Color Atlas of Plant Structure e by Bryan Bowes. I bought a used one a few of years ago and it has really improved my knowledge of what I am observing. Plus, between it and J...

Last week I bought some slides from John and I'm really looking forward to receiving them from England. I expect I'll be especially challenged in photographing them as I typically don't work with botanical specimens; the stacking will be most fun and interesting I suspect. And so now John's shipment...

I came across this old post of mine. And I have to say -- The stupid mites are back. I sprayed the plant down again last night and I can only hope that will take care of it. Does anyone here happen to know the life cycle of spider mites? I suspect that I got rid of the adults but not the eggs. Oddly...

Nance wrote:fascinating... is the head the thinner end?

I just watched a video of these guys on Youtube and it seems the wider end is the head end, although they do have flexibility and they sort of ooz about like an amoeba to some extent.

That is a really great video. I've never come across one of these in the wild so I've not seen one in action before. The movements are very interesting and I really like how you captured so much detail with your video. Thanks!

Actually, this is a really good video. I'm wondering: How big are they and what magnification were you using...Also, do you know if they are infectious if you were to accidentally get one on you? Should I wear gloves when collecting the pond samples, for instance? As I recall, it was recorded on my...

I agree with John -- You did it again! I've never seen anything like that -- It reminds me of the Spanish Dancer nudibranch I saw in a documentary of ocean life. I too have no idea what this might be but I will watch this thread closely.

As I understand it, these guys don't live very long outside a host -- Is that correct? Incorrect. Schistosome adults are never found outside the host. They reside within the mesenteric veins of the host, where they will release eggs into the host circulation. The eggs are the only products that lea...

Looks like a fibre, to me. An unstained trematode should appear brownish or grey. I believe the red schistosomes you see in textbooks have been prepared with stains (acid carmine, or something similar). Trematodes are amazing, if you can find them! I've encountered the cercaria stage, in water cont...

We really need to work on pulling together everyone on here for a get together as well. So many interesting people.. so much expertise! That would be awesome! :D yeah and I could enter what is perhaps one of the most famous inline marathons while up there..The Northshore!!! Kill 2 birds with one st...

+1 on moss. Check water from everywhere ... birdbaths, horse troughs, ditches, whatever. Spring is upon us, might want to check out pollen. Although perhaps not quite what you meant, it's a living thing, and an endlessly fascinating subject should it catch your fancy. I found an incredible populati...

I think I'll give Zerene another try once I'm off work next week. While I was put off by it not handling RAW files directly I could of course alter my workflow and convert the ones I want to stack beforehand. I don't think it would be nearly as big a deal as my brain wants me think it is. Right now ...

einman wrote:We really need to work on pulling together everyone on here for a get together as well. So many interesting people.. so much expertise!

That would be awesome!

More great photos! I hope I can find a stentor one of these days; they are one of my favorites. I think what we're looking at is indeed a rotifer, but someone else will have to come up with the species. The first copepod I believe is a nauplius, or a baby (larva) copepod -- Perhaps a cyclops. They t...

Wow -- Very beautiful images!

There are many different ciliates that crawl with cirri in the spirotrich class. Stylonychia is still a legitimate type, but they and their closer relatives are not nearly so compact. I think this is probably Euplotes , which are generally more oval and often have grooves; for freshwater kinds they...

There you go!
I just found this thread after I responded to an earlier post (so you can probably ignore that one).

I could be wrong (of course) but I think those little things in the background, just out of focus, are bacteria. Typically, they are around 4-8 microns long (although of course some are quite a bit larger or smaller than that). So, to see them individually you need to use 400x magnification or even ...

This is one of the very first photos I took when I got my microscope awhile ago. I didn't think much of it at the time, but on a second viewing it really doesn't seem all that bad after all. What I like about the photo is it is a sideways view of the little guy as he goes scampering about looking fo...

I just did some testing in Helicon. I got some good results and some really terrible results -- Which is very strange because it worked quite well when I originally tested it back in October. So, I really don't know. I might just stick with Photoshop as at least it is consistent. I did "fix" one of ...

OK -- I'm going to kill this process (it's been running nearly two hours) and bite the bullet and get Helicon. Photoshop actually does do a decent job for the most part but it does get confused by certain things and I've found when you get serious about something it is often good to buy something be...

From my limited stacking experience I would say you won't lose any resolution if you downsize the images somewhat before stacking. One would think that from 8 images one would necessarily get a higher resolved image than from 1 image, but this is only the case if you have very finely spaced steps. ...

The thing is you can't really be sure what you're going to find in any given moment. I saw my first ever paramecium in the wild just last month and I've only ever seen one waterbear. What I do see rather consistently are nematodes, rotifers and bacteria. The types of protists and other animals will ...

Wow... PICOLAY is still processing an 8 image stack from when I last posted on this thread. It says it's on step 3206 and it is still counting. I don't think it's going to work for me. Is this normal behavior for this program? The image files are Nikon RAW (NEF), but PICOLAY can handle those types o...

edit: Does PICOLAY work with RAW files? The answer would appear to be "some of them" http://www.picolay.icbm.de/picolay-manual.pdf My Panasonic RW2 files are not listed. ... but that's largely irrelevant to me, as it's 'Windows only' software. MichaelG. Thanks -- I *just* figured out how to read th...

I agree that you should talk with John about slides if you are interested in botanical specimens to look at. I intend to buy a set of slides from him soon -- This thread reminded me about his work! Also, for more variety of specimens you can always check out Triarch Inc., a slide maker located in Ri...

mrsonchus wrote:Hi, I make my own Botanical slides - see my posts in this forum for images. I always have many that I can sell.

I'm heading over to your website now -- Thanks for the reminder!

I just tried Zerene Stacker but it doesn't work with RAW files like Helicon Focus does. So, at this point I'm looking at Helicon. Another one was mentioned that is free (I can't recall the name) so I'll give that one a try as well and see how it goes. Thanks for the suggestions; I appreciate it! edi...

Hey everyone! I have a question regarding stacking software -- I'm wondering which one is the best when working with microscopic images and macro photography. Right now I use Photoshop CC, and it does work rather well but it isn't perfect. I did try Helicon Focus, but the trial period ran out before...

75RR wrote:Color Balance in Digital Imaging - a very comprehensive article.

https://www.microscopyu.com/digital-ima ... al-imaging

Thanks -- Bookmarked!