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I was sent a link today for a Brownewell Photography which specialises in 360° photography, including taking photos of type specimens. The previews on the site are composed of 20-30 photographs to give the illusion of 360°, which works well enough. You are given rotational control of the photos through Flash, as opposed to some other 360° images which use GIFs that you cannot control.

A quick search for 360 degree photography came up with a site (Red Door VR) which sells photographic turntables that had “click stop” intervals. They also recommended the program Object2VR to produce panoramas with Flash-based controls.

I think we will start to see more of these panoramic specimen images, although the major constraint will be the time it takes to produce them.

After failing to find a reasonably priced LED ring light which does what I want, I have decided to build one myself. My electronics knowledge was never particularly good at school, so it should be fun!

My basic requirements are that it:

1. Illuminates small (~5mm) to medium  (~2cm) sized insects without casting too many shadows
2. Fits on different microscopes
3. Is powered by a (rechargeable) battery

Additional requirements are:

• The option to power it from the mains
• The ability to dim the LEDs
• Switch groups of LEDs on/off

I shall start with a basic prototype consisting of 8 white LEDs, potentially adding more and making the circuit more complex. It shouldn’t be too hard but I haven’t used a soldering iron for years!

At work (and soon at home) I will be taking many depth stacked insect images from both a microscope and using a macro lens. Whilst I have a ring flash for the camera, I need a constant light source for the microscope, so I’ve started thinking and searching for a cheap LED ring light. My target price is under £50.

I remember seeing some fluorescent and white LED ring lights at an entomological fair and thinking they were rather expensive. The cheapest ring lights were the fluorescent ones, costing about £30 each. The LED rings were more, costing over £50. A quick Google search brings up a ring light for a Marumi compact camera ring light for £40 (RRP £77.62!) which still seems expensive and I don’t know how it attaches or if it would fit a microscope. Further searching turns up some in-car lights which could be adapted and an  LED microscope light which does exactly what I want (AC power, adjustable lighting and thumb screws) but costs a mere £500 and is not for sale in the UK.

DIY Ring Light © fdecomite

I am beginning to think I’ll need to build one… Any ideas?

Earlier in May I visited Rainham Marshes with Tristan and Malin. This was my second visit to the marshes after previously visiting in March. We were fortunate to have a lovely sunny day and saw plenty of insects.

Rainham Marshes is nature reserve managed by the RSPB. It is located to the east of London and is fairly easy to travel to on the train (the nearest station is Purfleet, about 10 minutes walk away).

Rainham Marshes

We mainly were hunting for insects, although we did see some interesting vertebrates too:

Water Vole, Arvicola amphibius

Marsh frog, Pelophylax ridibundus

It was my first time hearing the marsh frogs and I thought it was quite nice to hear them, although they were very loud!

The invertebrate highlights included seeing my first lace bug (Hemiptera: Tingidae), bishop’s mitre (Aelia acuminata), woundwort shieldbug (Eysarcorus venustissimus), a cream-spot ladybird and a pair of Larinioides cornutus having what looked like a violent mating ritual.

Deadly embrace - Larinioides cornutus

Cream-spot ladybird, Calvia 14-guttata

Bishop's mitre, Aelia acuminata

I am still investigating the different ways to take microscopic images and have some images and a different system to show you. Previously I had been looking at microscopes which came with a USB attachment such as the Summit Microfix Digital Microscope. I first read about it in a Phasmid Study Group newsletter and the author, Tracy Dove, has kindly given me permission to use some of her images.

Eurycantha calcarata egg taken by Summit Microfix Digital Microscope © Tracy Dove

Peruphasma schulteii head taken by Summit Microfix Digital Microscope © Tracy Dove

Peruphasma schulteii eye taken by Summit Microfix Digital Microscope © Tracy Dove

These images were taken by hand, without a stand and without depth stacking. I think they are pretty good for a device which costs less than £40! The microscope does not come with a stand which would allow you to take images suitable for depth stacking, but it would probably be easy to make one.

The other system I found was ScopeTronix’ MaxView Plus, which allows you to use a digital camera with a variety of optical devices if they have the supported fittings. Whilst fairly costly at ~$300, the kit comes with multiple attachments, and ScopeTronix have a range of fittings for digital cameras. If you knew exactly which microscope adaptor you required, I think you could get it for a lot less than $300!

Whilst most of the specimens I photograph are over 5mm long, I am finding that anything smaller does not have enough detail when I use my macro lens. My subjects are small insects in the field and small parts of (sometimes small) museum specimens. I am fairly certain that extension tubes will do the job for the leafhopper-sized insects and probably Collembola, but my museum work seems to be heading towards getting a digital microscope.

My supervisor and I have been looking at reasonably priced attachments and whole systems, but have yet to come close to reaching a decision. Unexpectedly, there was an article in The Phasmid Study Group newsletter (which arrived today along with the British Dragonfly Society newsletter and journal) about a cheap USB microscope. The model featured was a Summit Microfix Digital USB Microscope which can be purchased for <£50 on Amazon.

Although it is hard to see exactly how good the images produced by the microscope are, I can make out stick insect individual ocelli and fine hairs on the antennae. Whilst I think the image quality looks good enough, I am uncertain how easy it would be to increase the limited depth of field by “stacking” multiple images. From the photos of the microscope, it does not look like it comes with a stand. Amazon reviews of other microscopes made by what looks like the same company are not entirely favourable, with some potential driver issues for Mac and some XP users.

I will try and contact the author to see if it would be easy to attempt depth stacking and to have a look at her images in more detail.

My April holidays have ended and I am back at work. I spent a lot of time in the garden, digging vegetable beds and constructing some pallet-based compost bins.

Whilst last week was fairly rainy, the previous week had some nice sunny days so there was plenty of insect activity. I have seen much more insect variety, with various flies, butterflies and bees on the wing.

The holidays seem to use my time faster than when I am working so I will just post some spring insect photos for now:

Anthophora plumipes (male).

A leafhopper, Euscelis incisus.

A lateral fly shot, probably a bluebottle.

A few weekends ago I visited Wicken Fen, the UK’s oldest nature reserve. Since it was first bought in 1899 by the National Trust, the area of the reserve has increased from 0.008km² (2 acres) to 7.7km², and the trust plans to buy more of the surrounding land to enlarge it further.

Wicken Fen

The habitat of the reserve is a remnant of the formerly vast Cambridgeshire fenlands, land which is now used almost entirely (99.9%) for farming. The fen has long been a place of interest for entomologists, and continues to be so: as well as being species rich, the British Dragonfly Society will be opening a dragonfly center at the fen later in the year.

Even though I visited early in the year, the weather was nice and sunny, and I saw many insect species for the first time. On the start of our walk my girlfriend found a prowling water scorpion, Nepa cinerea, which was an exciting first Heteropteran bug of the year! This was also my first proper opportunity to use my new macro lens, and although I am still learning many basics, I was happy with most of the photos I took.

Water scoprion, Nepa cinerea

Some other firsts for me was seeing a slender groundhopper, Tetrix subulata, and a 24-spot ladybird, Subcoccinella 24-punctata. Whilst my girlfriend is (fortunately) fond of insects, she was particularly excited to see a common lizard, Zootoca vivipara, basking in the sun.

Common lizard, Zootoca vivipara

On the way back I saw many mining bees, Andrena clarkella, digging their burrows around an oak tree.

Mining bee, Adrena clarkella

I am hoping to visit Wicken Fen again soon, perhaps during my next holiday.

These photos are slightly delayed because I formated my computer over the weekend, replaced some parts and switched from taking jpegs to raw images. The aquisition of a larger capacity memory card and hard drive has meant that storage space is less of a concern, at least for now!

I posted the bee photos on Flickr a few days ago, hoping that some of my contacts would help with identifications, which they did – thanks Tristan.

I saw two species of Adrena but have yet to identify them, and one species of bumblebee, Bombus terrestris. Aside from some Diptera, this was all that I encountered.

Andrena sp. on lesser celandine. This was a very small bee, around 5-7mm.

Another Andrena sp. (male). There were a lot of these in the same place, on the bark of the tree and around the surrounding earth. At one point there were over ten of them.

If the weather is good tomorrow I will visit Langdon Hills again.

My weekend has been very busy.

On Friday night I cooked for my family; as usual, cooking new dishes meant I was a little late in serving (I made a shallot compote and I used rather large shallots which took longer to cook than I anticipated!) but I think it was worth the delay!

On Saturday we had an early start to go into London and buy a dedicated macro lens for my camera. My Flickr friends recommended getting a Sigma 105mm, so now I can take reasonable photos at a much further distance than I could previously. Once I get some extension tubes I hope to take photos of smaller insects, like leafhoppers and ants.

After buying the lens I went into the museum to try the camera out:

An unidentified Cercopid taken using a Sigma 105mm Macro lens © The Natural History Museum

Very shortly I will be leaving to visit Wicken Fen and shall go insect hunting with the new lens. I’ll post some new photos and the photos I took last weekend soon.