Stentor ?

[molehill]

Hi All,
It has been a while but its good to be back!

Some images of Stentor ( well that is what I think they are ) I found in the small stream feeding into the storm water pond
located in a park just over the fence, where I live. The water quality is dodgy but I have found a number interesting specimens
in this location some of which I will share with you later.


S Apo 20x NA 0.65 ISO1000 1/800 sec


S Apo 20x NA 0.65 ISO400 1/250 sec


S Apo 20x NA 0.65 ISO100 1/160sec


S Apo 40x NA 0.82 ISO1000 1/320 sec


S Apo 40x NA 0.82 ISO1000 1/400

I have been experimenting with higher ISO settings to achieve shorter exposure times in a attempt to freeze some of the action.
Quite happy with the results.

All Images:
Meiji Techno MX2000 2.5x Photo projection lens
Canon 40D recoded in sRAW.
Light Room 4 & Elements 13

[rnabholz]

I would say that is exactly what you have there, and some excellent shots of them too.

Excellent detail and some nice color showing as well.

Whatever you are doing with the exposure, it looks like it is working from here.

Rod

[Crater Eddie]

Excellent images!
CE

[75RR]

Great images. Thanks for posting camera settings.

[gekko]

Good to have you back posting again, molehill. I agree with all the comments above. As usual, excellent photos with very nice detail and color.

[zzffnn]

Very nice images! I especially like photos #2 and #3.

Were the photos digitally enhanced in post (software)?

Thank you for sharing and welcome back.

[vasselle]

Bonjour.
Très belles séries images.
Merci pour le partage
Cordialement seb

[molehill]

Thank you all for the feed back and kind remarks.

As to the question "where they digitally enhanced?" No more then any image I take regardless of the subject.
Image 3 is the most "manipulated" I removed the background to isolate the subject.

For bright field I over expose 1 stop for Phase contrast I under expose one stop.

I use lightroom to edit my raw files and use the sliders to manipulate the histogram until I get a result which pleases me.
At this stage I apply sharpening and some times remove noise, crop ect.
The result is exported as a PSP file. Often the back ground needs work, for this I use the Olympus background subtraction tool.
After this I may do some extra enhancements in Adobe Elements. A favourite is the high pas filter blended with the original image in a layer and I tweak
the levels but that is about all.
Layers offers unlimited control and is well worth mastering.