John Shaw (Micro Aquariums)


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Sgt. Pepper

Sgt. Pepper

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Jun 30, 2003
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It has been a long wait before I’ve finally executed this under water macrophotography. The idea came from the Close-up in Nature book by J.Shaw (Micro Aquariums).

These are actually Mosquito Larva (a.k.a. “wriggler” because of its almost constant wriggling movements just below the water surface) and Pupa that is the “teenage” form of mosquito. Although they live in water, all mosquito larvae come to the surface to breathe air though a specialized tube or siphon.

Photographing these subjects means shooting them in their habitat, so I used an improvised small square glass and filled it with distilled water. I've used different shade of green as a background.

Set-up: Tamron 180mm + 500D + 12+25mm Ext Tubes.

Cheers!
edsel


"Wriggler" 1/45s, f16, ISO200
75157-large-img_2249x-after.jpg


"Pupa" 1/60s, f16, ISO400
75160-large-img_2301-after.jpg


1/60s, f16, ISO400
75158-large-img_2268y-after.jpg
 

Wow! Excellant shots... I like the pupa stage shots. ;)
Any way to eliminate the reflection from water surface?
 

Cool :thumbsup: Very alien like.

Keep it coming ;)
 

very nice, not enough shutter speed though, can see the little bugger wriggling esp in #1. might consider more light, but flash would be challenging.

good job with the clean glass :) :thumbsup:
 

I had used this technique long time ago. Managed to find a slide (it was that long), which survived. Scanned it and touched up a bit. This is a pic of a backswimmer with a mosquito larvae in the small tank. Cant remember the exact magnification, but I was also using the coke bottle technique with extension tubes and reversed lens, handheld on one hand and with the flash on the other hand. I even had some pics printed in a company's annual report using this.

Pretty useful for doing aquatic subjects.

Predator.jpg
 

Thanks for the comments guys! :)


Zplus said:
Any way to eliminate the reflection from water surface?
Click to expand...
You will notice that I used side lighting for these shots, it helps alot to lessen the reflection.

hwchoy said:
very nice, not enough shutter speed though, can see the little bugger wriggling esp in #1.
Click to expand...
They dont 'wriggle' while breathing and it was tripod mounted. I cant see any motion blur on the first image though, it could a DOF issue.

Cheers!
 

Sgt. Pepper said:
They dont 'wriggle' while breathing and it was tripod mounted. I cant see any motion blur on the first image though, it could a DOF issue.

Cheers!
Click to expand...

ah ha, could be. at this resolution a bit hard to tell. 3rd and 4th segment from the top.
 

Let me post mine.
Set-up: Nikkor 60mm + 8+52.5mm Ext Tubes + 1.4X.

2s, f11, ISO320, manually triggered flash from side.
DSC_1525z.jpg
 

Interesting Paramecium you got there. Maybe a black background in black with backlighting could bring out the cilia a bit more. With something this small, I guess handheld is out of the question.
 

Sgt, you have a clear Winner shots there! :thumbsup:
I dont see any motion blur on the 1st image also. :dunno:
 

wonderful shots !

sgt pepper, care to share with hardware and settings for the superb shots ?
 

Sgt Pepper,

Always like your shots, including the spiders one sometime back... you just have the photographic eyes... Very interesting shot and a nice touch by evening out the background. :)
 

Thanks guys! :)

metalgear said:
sgt pepper, care to share with hardware and settings for the superb shots ?
Click to expand...
Set-up: 10D+Tamron 180mm + 500D + 12+25mm Ext Tubes

Rgds,
 

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