cryptic 2
What it is, is, the underside of a "Osmia bucephala" bee's head.
There are a lot of different species of bees, A LOT. I'm working on learning taxonomy and lately, because of my interest in photography, I've been taking pictures to upload to an online digital key. www.discoverlife.org/mp/20q?guide=Bee_genera
The character I was trying to shoot was a ridge that runs around a groove where the tongue is.
The bee, which was a pinned specimen, was not in a position conducive to my success. I pivoted and turned the bee this way and that, yet I could not get a clear shot at the character. The fore legs were in the way. I had to remove them. I hate that. I hate breaking a specimen.
Bees have quite elaborate tongues, as you might expect from a nectar-feeding animal. Some groups of bees have very large tongues. This bee had a large tongue which was also in my way. I had to remove it.
Still no good. There was so much hair on the bee that I still couldn't see the character. The angle was all wrong. So I to shave the underside of the head. I didn't have a microscalpel at hand, so I used an insect pin as best as I could. I removed the head from the bee.
Turning it this way and that, I was very frustrated with the results. The ridge, which was small, was not popping out. I tried messing with the lights, changing angles, changing colors. Nothing made it pop.
What's worse, on the set up I am using, the screen I use to focus is has such low resolution it looks like I'm playing a round of eight-bit centipede on an old gameboy. The scope itself is lovely. The camera is okay. But the hardware of the controls is sucky. Plus the card is some proprietary piece of crap and that is frustrating. But it is the focus screen that makes me nuts. Makes me want to find that greedy so and so who cheaped out on the screen and give him a piece of my mind. A system is only as good as its weakest link and, well, this is why I will never buy an Olympus.
Yeah, frustration.
Today I'll probably make another stab at this character.
mm frustration
cryptic 2
What it is, is, the underside of a "Osmia bucephala" bee's head.
There are a lot of different species of bees, A LOT. I'm working on learning taxonomy and lately, because of my interest in photography, I've been taking pictures to upload to an online digital key. www.discoverlife.org/mp/20q?guide=Bee_genera
The character I was trying to shoot was a ridge that runs around a groove where the tongue is.
The bee, which was a pinned specimen, was not in a position conducive to my success. I pivoted and turned the bee this way and that, yet I could not get a clear shot at the character. The fore legs were in the way. I had to remove them. I hate that. I hate breaking a specimen.
Bees have quite elaborate tongues, as you might expect from a nectar-feeding animal. Some groups of bees have very large tongues. This bee had a large tongue which was also in my way. I had to remove it.
Still no good. There was so much hair on the bee that I still couldn't see the character. The angle was all wrong. So I to shave the underside of the head. I didn't have a microscalpel at hand, so I used an insect pin as best as I could. I removed the head from the bee.
Turning it this way and that, I was very frustrated with the results. The ridge, which was small, was not popping out. I tried messing with the lights, changing angles, changing colors. Nothing made it pop.
What's worse, on the set up I am using, the screen I use to focus is has such low resolution it looks like I'm playing a round of eight-bit centipede on an old gameboy. The scope itself is lovely. The camera is okay. But the hardware of the controls is sucky. Plus the card is some proprietary piece of crap and that is frustrating. But it is the focus screen that makes me nuts. Makes me want to find that greedy so and so who cheaped out on the screen and give him a piece of my mind. A system is only as good as its weakest link and, well, this is why I will never buy an Olympus.
Yeah, frustration.
Today I'll probably make another stab at this character.
mm frustration