Amber inclusions II. Wasp. Beetle.

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 8:58 pm

Still experimenting with the 30 million year old bugs trapped in amber!
I hope to get some reference books soon that will help be give better identifications.

The top image is of a small beetle. Most of the body was not visible, but a leg and antenna was. Most interesting to me was that there appears to be the remnant of muscle tissue dried up within the exoskeleton. Pretty amazing I thought!

These next two images are of a tiny wasp. Although it looks like it may be fairly large, it probably only measures about 2.5mm long. (About the size of a big aphid). It was displayed nicely, but there were too many bubbles in the amber... not too bad for the "overall" shot, but the tighter "head" shot gets a few soft, low contrast areas due to the out-of-focus bubbles.
At the bottom of the first wasp photo is a "blown-up" section of the wing that shows hamuli very similar to the ones I photographed on a yellow-jacket http://www.photomacrography1.net/forum/ ... .php?t=526

Ken Ramos · Post by **Ken Ramos** » Wed Jan 04, 2006 4:27 am

30 million years...wonder if any of these species of wasp or beetles are still around? You're not planning to extract any DNA from these are you Charlie?

Sergio Zalewska · Post by **Sergio Zalewska** » Wed Jan 04, 2006 6:36 am

Ohhh... more winning pictures coming out.

rene · Post by **rene** » Wed Jan 04, 2006 10:16 am

Stunning Charles, at what depth are these insects trapped??

Rene.

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Wed Jan 04, 2006 12:31 pm

Rene.. I only have few samples right now, and I have chosen to work with ones where the inclusion is close to the surface. (Or where I have removed some amber to get the subject close to surface). I have tried to cut and polish a surface this is as flat and parallel to the subject as possible, but this can not always be done due to the shape of the amber and the position of the subject. I would say that in the few pictures I have posted the subject was between .5 to 1.5 mm below the surface.

The thing that seems to make the biggest improvement when the amber surface is not as "perfect" as I would like (which is always!) is to position a coverglass against the surface and "flood" the gap with immersion oil. The index of refraction of amber is 1.546. My immersion oil is 1.515... not a perfect match, but it makes a huge difference in the quality of the result. (The immersion oil does not seem damge the amber).

The other thing that makes these images much easier to produce is using Helicon Focus and shooting/combining a z-stack to get DOF. Since the positioning of the subject within the amber can't be changed, it is extrememly helpful to use such a program for this subject.

Charlie

rene · Post by **rene** » Thu Jan 05, 2006 8:19 am

That's a very good tip (the coverglass oiled to the amber)! I've seen pretty awfull professional images before, but of course not everybody is allowed to use the best piece of amber or even to cut and polish it. I guess a correction collar would be useful too.
Wonderful images!

Rene.

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 1:34 pm

Rene...

but of course not everybody is allowed to use the best piece of amber or even to cut and polish it.

Yes that's a problem. I would be very hesitant to do what I am doing with a "prime" piece for several reasons:
- They cost too much!
- I would be afraid of damaging it. Undoubtedly there are masters at cutting/polishing these pieces of amber, but I am certainly not. It is fairly brittle, and prone to break off where there are small cracks or stress marks. It's also too easy to accidentally "cut" into the specimen itself. (Indeed, several of the pieces I have came this way already). That's why I'm concentrating on photographing small details of what I call "lesser" pieces. Inexpensive, and all I need is a good antenna or leg and I can have fun and get some interesting pictures.