Mayfly Nymph

[Tom Jones]

Here's a video of a Mayfly nymph I found a few weeks ago. It was among a clump of algae floating on the surface at the edge of a very slow moving outflow stream from a local lake.

The microscope is an Olympus SZH, and the camera used is a Panasonic GH4. The nymph was in a glass petri dish with 5mm or so of water, so vertical movement is always a challenge for depth of field.

It's shot and uploaded in 4K, so the higher resolution you can view it in, the better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz0xMhJj08E

Tom

[75RR]

Great video. Very sharp imaging. Wonderful detail on the tracheal gills. Watched at 1440p - had to wait a bit for it to load - well worth it.

[lorez]

Curses, Tom Jones ! Your first class work has driven me into the abyss of eBay in search of MORE equipment.

lorez

[rnabholz]

Very high quality video, and the captions are really helpful, and no small commitment to do.

Thank you for the effort on all aspects, the results show it.

Rod

[billben74]

That was some very professional looking video footage.
Beautiful panning and timing over the movements. Rock steady.

[einman]

Very nice! Good detail and resolution. I enjoyed it immensely.

[gekko]

Excellent video. Excellent image quality and wonderful details.

[Tom Jones]

Thanks everyone ! I'm glad you enjoyed it. I forgot to mention too, it was shot in dark field, utilizing the ILLD dark field base

The Mayfly was an accidental find, and I had never seen one before. Rather fascinating to watch, particularly the tracheal gills. He survived a couple of weeks before an apparently hungry Damselfly nymph in the same petri dish had him (her?) for dinner. I'm still working on the Damselfly video. The Damselfly was an accidental find as well.

lorez: I know what you mean. An abyss it is, too. I was driven over the same brink several years ago by the various posts of one Mr. Charles Krebs. It's only fitting I infect someone else! Best of luck to you!

billben74: The panning worked that well courtesy of a home made, greased, glide stage, not unlike those on the AO 60 round stage series of student microscopes. It is essentially a base plate, machined so part fits into the opening on the SZH stage, and an upper stage plate on which the petri dish or slide rests. Between them is a very low viscosity Nye damping grease to provide for the smooth motion. I made one that will fit the BX series and an adapter to fit the BH-2 series, too.

I have a few of those AO 60's I use for outreach and training, but hadn't realized the possibilities until I saw a video posted by myriophyllum on Photomicrography.net (http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... ding+stage). I found a Lomo glide stage on EBay and made an adapter to fit my BHS, but found it didn't have the range of travel I wanted, so I combined some of the attributes of both the Lomo and AO stages for my custom version. I'm pretty happy with the results.

Tom

[c-krebs]

Tom,

Looks great! Really nice job with the lighting, panning, exposure... all well done.

[billben74]

Nice DIY work. It gives a really top notch result.
If you have time, you couldn't indulge the forum with a picture of your stage?

[vasselle]

Bonjour
Very nice
Cordialement seb

[Tom Jones]

billben74 - I'll be posting several pictures and a description of my glide stages shortly in another thread.

Tom

[Roldorf]

Just discovered the video hiding in the past annals of Microbe Hunter.

For all you new members and budding video makers have a look back to 2006 and be amazed. Sir David would have been proud to be associated with it.

[MichaelG.]

Just discovered the video hiding in the past annals of Microbe Hunter.

Thanks for mentioning it ... I had not seen the video before
My day is better already !!

MichaelG.

[Tom Jones]

Thanks Roldorf and MichaelG! About a 30 second clip from that ended up on Discovery Canada's science show Daily Planet, in an episode of Ziyology, hosted by Ziya Tong and Dan Riskin. Just basking in all the glory here.

Tom