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Photo Synthesis is a rotating showcase of the best science photography on the web.
Ted Kinsman is a scientific photographer that specializes in creating images for books, magazines, and television. His particular areas of interest are in x-ray radiography, high-speed photography, Scanning electron microscopy, and time-lapse cinematography. His work has appeared in numerous books and magazines ranging from Discover Magazine to Forbes. Recently his work has appeared on Gray's Anatomy and CSI New York. In addition to running www.sciencephotography.com Kinsman also teaches advanced placement physics at Brighton High School in Rochester, NY, he also teaches advanced macro-photography at Rochester Institute of Technology.
B.N. (Bobbie) Sullivan has a strong affinity for the sea and everything in it. She first learned to dive in 1970 and has since logged thousands of dives. A wish to document the marine life she encountered prompted her to learn underwater photography more than 20 years ago. More recently, she began to write about the marine life she has photographed. A research psychologist by profession, she approaches her subject matter with the mindset of a scientist, but targets her writing to a general readership in whom she hopes to foster an appreciation for the ocean and its inhabitants.
Bobbie lives in Hawaii with her husband. Together they produce TheRightBlue.com, where you can see more of Bobbie's photos and writing.
B Jefferson Bolender is Training Coordinator of the State of Arizona's
program for disability awareness and assistive technology. Through
her travels she always has a camera at hand to photograph everything
from people to technology and nature. As a teacher of elementary
education, special education and art, her interests include a wide
array of subject matter with an emphasis on documentation with an
artist's eye.
See more of her work in her photo stream on Flickr and the website atarizona.com.
Steve Jurvetson enjoys rocketry and photography and especially the pursuit of both in the Black Rock Desert. Some action photos and video links can be found here.
Steve is a Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ.com), a leading venture capital firm with affiliate offices around the world.
He was the founding VC investor in Hotmail, Interwoven, and Kana. Previously, he was an R&D Engineer at HP, and his prior technical experience also includes programming, materials science research, and computer design. He has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering, an MSEE and and MBA, all from Stanford University.
Alex Wild is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he works on the molecular phylogenetics of various groups of insects. He is also a part-time photographer whose images appear in such venues as Ranger Rick, Smithsonian, BBC Wildlife, and even ScienceBlogs.
Alex's galleries are viewable at www.alexanderwild.com, and he normally blogs at Myrmecos Blog.
Into entomology? Check out Insects.org
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Category: Ants • Insects • Photography
Posted on: April 22, 2009 9:59 PM, by Alex Wild
Equipment details: Canon EOS 20D, using an MP-E 65mm 1-5x lens (at 5x), lit with an MT-24EX twin flash diffused through tracing paper.
Several years ago, before I became serious about photography, I shot the same species in Paraguay with a little Nikon Coolpix 995. Here's the result:
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Comments
One question: how do you set up the insects? Do you set up the camera and wait until they wander into the field of view, or do you actively place them in one way or another? I've heard that at least some insect macro shooters advocate putting insects in the freezer to make them sluggish, then shoot them before they heat up enough to go running away. Not sure how ethical that would be though.
Posted by: Janne | April 22, 2009 11:33 PM
Well, you can get identical results with an SLR digicam. You just need the right close-up lenses. And patience...
Posted by: Larry Ayers | April 22, 2009 11:35 PM
Oh, if I could get those types of shots just with my DSLR. I've coveted that lens for a couple years, but the street price is sadly far outside my equipment budget these days.
Your posts have all been outstanding. I have a closet interest in entomology, especially social insects. Great way to kick off the blog :)
Posted by: Eric | April 22, 2009 11:38 PM
Janne-
For the stylized (=white background) shots, the ants are set up.
I've got a much better trick than using the freezer. I simply put a petri dish over the ant, and after a few minutes of running around, she usually takes a break and sits still. Then I remove the dish and take the shot. I usually get a couple seconds before the ant takes off running again.
Freezer shots don't work well, in my experience. Not only does the freezer give telltale condensation on the insect, it's also hard to get any kind of normal behavior out of a chilled subject. Legs crimp in a weird way, and so on.
In any case, I've got an article about working with ants here.
Posted by: Alex | April 22, 2009 11:48 PM
Hi Alex, amazing shot that first one. I saw my first ants of the season two days back and tried everything i possibly could to take some macro shots...gosh, are they difficult subjects or what! talking about slrs..i find it hard to look down the viewfinder at something at ground level...thinking of upgrading to a Sony A300 which has a swivel lcd and live view. Do use anything to make this easier? unfortunately Sony doesnt have the equivalent of the MP-E 65 lens. I`m depending on lens stacking for now to get the magnification.
Posted by: Tom | April 23, 2009 3:16 AM
I dream of someday being able to afford a digital SLR. Not just for the image quality, but for the short response time. The camera I'm using has a lag of about a half second between pressing the shutter and getting a picture, and a couple of seconds to recycle to the next shot. Which means that Alex's petri dish trick would probably only give me time for one shot on average. I expect that Alex's camera lets him fire off a dozen or so shots in the same time. So, I still use the refrigerator method, not because I like it particularly, but because it does at least let me get more than one picture at a time.
Of course, as it is I have spent less than $200 on camera equipment, where I expect Alex has spent thousands. You pay your money (or in my case, fail to pay your money), and you take your chances.
Posted by: Tim Eisele | April 23, 2009 7:42 AM