Robert Whyte

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Robert Whyte www.arachne.org.au

605 Followers•1.5K Following

7,518 Photos

Brisbane, Australia

Joined 2007

Robert Whyte

Give Pro

Robert Whyte www.arachne.org.au

605 Followers•1.5K Following

7,518 Photos

Brisbane, Australia

Joined 2007

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I am an Australian writer and recently a researcher in arachnology at Queensland Museum. I am building a web site field guide here: www.arachne.org.au I volunteer with Save Our Waterways Now to restore creek habitats in Brisbane's Enoggera catchment. My book Whyte & Anderson A Field Guide to Spiders of Australia, www.publish.csiro.au/book/6899 was published 1 June 2017 booko.com.au/9780643107076/A-Field-Guide-to-Spiders-of-Au...

UPDATE: Thursday, April 16, 2020 Some time back I purchased a Canon 5D Mark 4 which is a nice body with some funky features,

UPDATE Tuesday, February 23, 2016. I have been using the Canon MPE-65 with my EOS 700D and sometimes the 5D Mark 2 and 3, notably on my recent Bush Blitz tyrip to Kiwirrkurra WA, 11 hrs west of Alice Springs by slow car. It's a great lens. The 700D is handy for the small sensor naturally framing tighter.

I use a 16MP Panasonic FZ 70 with magnifier or 12MP bridge camera, Panasonic Lumix FZ 150 ($400), with an adapter tube ($90) for putting on Raynox raynox.co.jp/english/digital/fz100/index.html#dcr250 magnifying lenses ($120 ea.) www.flickr.com/photos/robertwhyte/8389384168/in/photostream

I have been getting good results with the Raynox 2.5 magnifier for small stuff with three synchronised manual flashes (more below) and sometimes a Canon 700D with a Tamron 18-200 with a 1.5 magnifier for larger specimens. Lately I have been doing a lot of scientific photos using gooseneck led lights.

UPDATE Sunday, April 16, 2017 I since have upgraded from the FZ 70 twice, first to the FZ 150 (The FZ 100 was crap with low picture quality) and then to the FZ 1000 which has a larger sensor. Both these allow the snap-on Raynox lenses with no extra adapters. The FZ 1000 is versatile and takes 4K video.

SEE BELOW FOR SET UP PHOTOS.

Light is the main issue with macrophotography. Strong sunlight is good but it is too hot and bright for most spiders. Some jumping spiders, orb weavers, crab and lynx spiders can be shot in sunlight but most others seek the shade.

For control and convenience I now shoot live spiders indoors with a Panasonic flash and a Gary Fong lightsphere diffuser, with a 'stage' set up of leaves or bark on a Wimberley plamp, www.tripodhead.com/products/plamp-main.cfm reflectors all around, and a soft-box just to see what I am shooting. The flash is to the right of the focussing rail here www.flickr.com/photos/robertwhyte/8389384168/

I shoot a lot of scientific photos of diagnostic features, like palps and epigynes, in alcohol in a glass block carved to leave a bowl. I position palps, some as small as .1mm, on KY jelly, or hair gel. The background under the glass block is better if it's dark, especially for dark palps.

I use a 5x Raynox magnifier for the really small stuff. As the Panasonic Lumix FZ 150 zooms 24x optically, I can just about fill the frame with even the tiniest palp, about .1mm. If course at this magnification you need a steady camera. I use a Manfrotto focussing rail www.manfrotto.com/micro-positioning-sliding-plate on a Manfrotto magic arm www.manfrotto.com/variable-friction-arm-with-quick-releas... with superclamp www.manfrotto.com/quick-action-super-clamp ($250). I light from many sides with LED illuminators plus flash. My latest breakthrough was fine control of lighting at low speeds (around 1/8th sec), using the Amscope LED gooseneck illuminators ($120) store.amscope.com/led-6w.html which have an easy intensity slider.

I can only shoot at F8 so my depth of field is very limited. However, when I back off the zoom to about 12x - 16x the depth of field increases a lot. It's a trade off between size of image on the sensor (how many pixels) and sharpness through all the focal range. I have a Zerene stacker and I could stack, but it's too bothersome.

The other secret is shooting in RAW format for manipulation of the much greater control over sharpness, white balance, 'lost' picture information, colour balance, contrast, brightness and all those things.

What you see in the picture of my set up www.flickr.com/photos/robertwhyte/8389384168/in/photostream is a cheapie stereo zoom microscope on the left where I examine the specimen (if only we could get REAL stereo cameras which could capture what we see down a stereo microscope!). It magnifies to 95x. When I have it in position (as much as possible in plane, parallel with the lens) I slide it over under the camera which is mounted on the focussing rail. On the right is a a diffused flash on manual, easy to dial up brighter or down if needed. The LED gooseneck illuminators are cming in from two more angles.

I find the palp with the viewfinder on wide (full out) and when I do, I zoom to 24x. I focus with the focussing rail. There is a winder at the top you twist to move it very small distances. It's very steady on the Manfrotto magic arm. I wear 6x magnifying glasses (you see them on the desk) to help me focus on the camera's LCD view finder, which swivels out and can be positioned at any angle. I suppose you could focus without, just by finding the sweet spot, but the 6x readers make it so much easier. I have overall lighting of 120w compact fluorescents above in a soft box, and for both the microscope and the camera, power new techlogy CREE style led illuminators (cold light). I use a Panasonic top end flash ($400) but the $70 Yongnuo flashes are just as good for this work. The images are 4000x3000 px, so you seen at even 1/4 of the frame for the object that is a pretty big palp at actual (pixel for pixel) size on a computer screen. If the object is very small, most of it fits within the frame at very high zoom, so the smaller the object is, the easier it gets. The flash is remotely triggered by wireless from the camera's hot shoe using an off camera shutter release cable. Pressing the shutter on the camera itself would shake the camera and make low speeds impossible. My magnification goes to 120x with the full zoom and 5x magnifier which is more than my microscope. I often see things on the photos I can't see with the microscope, although you could with a compound microscope or a scanning electron microscope.

Basically it is similar in power to the EOS 450 with the MX24 twin flash and MPE65 but with the added power of zoom, and much cheaper. I think you could probably achieve better results with the same lighting and focussing rail using the CANON 5D range, just by snapping on the Raynox magnifier onto the MPE65.

It is said my images are sometimes better than the images produced by the camera attachment on the third tube of a trinocular microscope, even very expensive and powerful ones with motorized stacking software. The problem with trinocular scopes is the cameras are really low res, compared to even a consumer level digital camera. It would be easy for the microscope manaufacturers to put in a 24MP sensor, but they are usually only about 3MP. Another problem is the software is PC only. The real solution will be a synced quadrocular microscope that uses two cameras combined into one (stereo imaging camera) slaved to the primary focusing so you really get what you see. Stacking would be mostly unnecessary, but may be useful for bigger objects with great depth.

My main trick for living animals is knowing how spiders behave, and having a light and compact enough camera to shoot hand held — with one hand. I need the other hand holding the leaf or stick the spider is on. The background should be something from nature where you find the spider.

I have a patch of remnant dry rainforest near where I live — Walton Bridge Reserve in The Gap, Brisbane. It is connected to Enoggera reserve, Brisbane Forest Park, Mt Coot-tha, etc. I have been systematically sampling this area in biodiversity experiments, using a white tray about 80cm x 60cm x 15cm deep and a stick about 3cm in diameter to 'bash' or lightly tap the foliage. To compare habitats I have been marking out 20m x 20m sections of bush or gardens, then sampling them. As long as you have consistent sampling methodology what you record can be compared. The most interesting spiders seem to live in the most biodiverse and structurely complex habitats.

www.flickr.com/photos/robertwhyte/8389384168/in/pool-1066...

Here are some more resources:

Media resources:

spaces.hightail.com/space/vBxNFGDZaj goo.gl/vfwPDj goo.gl/NyPmpH goo.gl/18SV6g

Cooloola ABC Online www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-28/new-spider-species-found-c...

Cooloola Spiders (Report) spaces.hightail.com/space/WnRYSYJ2Lg (with hi res

Flickr > source Of more images www.flickr.com/photos/robertwhyte/

ABC national TV Mornings youtu.be/41_LD_XQOOc

Whitley Awards www.rzsnsw.org.au/single-post/2018/10/10/Whitley-Awards-C...

Whitley Awards www.publish.csiro.au/catalogues/whitleys.htm

Big Smoke thebigsmoke.com.au/2018/10/07/five-books-that-inspired-au...

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