Damselfly nymph (dorsal & ventral views of head)

[Charles Krebs]

Photographed this damselfly nymph in a small "aquarium" slide I made, then set it loose back in the pond sample...
...sort of catch-and-release for insects.

Since the Olympus is still out of service, I've been playing around with a Labophot stand trying to come up with a condenser set-up that will give me nice even brightfield and easy darkfield with the low power objectives (2X, 2.5X and 3X) that I use most often for these "large" subjects. After dinking around off-and-on for a few days, I think I have finally found a working solution! Sometimes is seems harder to light for these low power objectives than the 10X-40X range.

The upper image is the dorsal view, taken with a 3X objective. The
lower image is a ventral view, taken with a 2.5X. I used a 2.5X photo-eyepiece,Canon Rebel 350D, and electronic flash for both.

[rjlittlefield]

... trying to come up with a condenser set-up that will give me nice even brightfield and easy darkfield with the low power objectives (2X, 2.5X and 3X) that I use most often for these "large" subjects.

Well, I can't evaluate "nice even brightfield" and "easy" darkfield from these images.

But there's just no way to fault the high quality of the darkfield. These are superb.

Any tips to pass along, about how you did these?

--Rik