Campylodiscus

[KurtM]

Got this slide from K. Kemp about a year ago, labeled "Lake Waratamu New Zealand". I was delighted to discover it contains Campylodiscus, which is unique among diatoms as the only form I am aware of with a "Pringle's Potato Chip" shape. This makes it the very devil to get images of ... unless you involve stacking techniques, which I just happen to be working on training myself to do using Zerene Stacker software.

So here's my latest challenge subject, taken through the 40x/.65, DIC, second image with 1st order red compensator, approximately 15 image stacks. I obviously need to continue working on my technique, but I thought these came out looking pretty cool nevertheless.

[Radazz]

Sweet images, Kurt, as always.

[75RR]

You are making the 40x sing and dance! :)

[rnabholz]

Did you computer start smoking while it was trying to figure out how to attach that one?

More Good stuff. Well done.

Rod

[gekko]

Beautiful diatom, and really expert imaging and stacking.

[McConkey]

Wow great images Kurt! You are really getting your money's worth with Zerene!! Thanks for sharing!

[KurtM]

Thanks for all the kind words, y'all!

Here's a cross eye stereo pair. Not the best, but as with everything else Zerene, I'm endeavoring to learn the ropes. This is one diatom that could really benefit from a 3D view.

[c-krebs]

Great fun! Really nice images!

In fact, if you even could make a "perfect" stack and get everything sharp you probably wouldn't want to. Notice how, especially in the second image the out-of-focus sections really add dimension and provide great "shape" clues. Sometimes you'll shoot a complete z-stack from top to bottom, but realize later that it looks better if you don't use all of the images.

[KurtM]

Thanks Charles, it's nice to have affirmation that I'm on the right track. Sometimes I feel as though I chop 'em up so violently in retouching that they end up more as composite images than stacks. But then I suppose stacks are themselves composite images, so what the heck - "if it feels good, do it". In every case, however, I always ask myself: is the result better than the best single frame I can manage? The answer is often a definite yes, of course. And yes, it's a lot of fun!

In other news, I tried to create a rocking image since many here can't do the cross-eyed stereo thing, but can find neither the menu option(s) in Zerene nor tutorial info on the Zerene web site for it. So I abandoned that, and made the stereo pair instead. Which brings up another question: how to retouch stereo pair images?

[Radazz]

I'm astounded that the cross eyed view works so well.
Usually stuff like this fails miserably for me.

Jim

[KurtM]

Ah, glad to know it works for you, thanks for mentioning it. Interestingly, it's not one of the easier ones for me. I find myself needing to get a bit closer to see this one.