Photomicroscopy by Fat Red Ant

This Christmas Mr. Santa once again amazed me with his thoughtfulness and demonstrated that he has some grasp on the inner workings of my brain. Along with a great many other treasures, he put under the tree a trinocular lab-quality microscope with a digital camera attachment for use in my art. I have been having a blast and both of us have been awestruck by the world within the world within a world in which we live. To give you an idea of what I can see, the first thing I looked at was a piece of lint, that was approximately 1/16 x 1/32 of an inch in size. In it was a COMPLETE wing from what must be to the human eye, an invisible bug. He was also kind enough to include a collected assortment of insect carcasses. There are benefits to living in a 140 year old house...lots of specimen!

I am still learning the equipment and set up and have a lot to learn about getting the best images but these are a few I took within the first two days of playing. Oh boy oh boy! What fun to be had!

05.12.29 - Today's experimentation:


Quaking Aspen	Elm	Tear in an unknown leaf I brought back from France

I've received a couple emails asking about the equipment. I have:

New Trinocular Illuminated Microscope and a used Nikon Coolpix 990 both acquired via Ebay plus a converter from Zarf Enterprises. Jack decided to get the Nikon even though I have a brand new digital SLR (Canon Eos Rebel XT) because he read in several places that the Nikon 990 was among the best and easiest to use for photomicroscopy and he didn't want me to struggle to get photos. He also got me the camera's remote so there's no camera motion - ain't he smart! It works great. The 990 is a 3.4 megapixel camera; the Rebel is 8.1 - You know I will be researching how to connect that one too. He said read that it's possible but it seemed far more techincal and beyond his understanding of the new camera. Right now I am just enjoying all the new possibilities...feeling totally spoiled and loving it!