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Show us your fossils through a macro lens.


Bobby Rico

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Hi all

As you probably know I have really been interested lately in macro photography. Let’s see any of your wonderful fossil adventures in close up. 

 

Today I found this little beauty a shark tooth (I have not ID it yet but it could be Negaprion lemon shark tooth) form Rattlesnake Creek micro matrix I was sent. It is only about 3mm but a Bobby dazzler.

 

 

84F98A86-5661-4088-BCB1-5496162C642D.jpeg
 

Looking forward to seeing some of your very interesting pictures.

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Bobby, yes I have done two fossils so far.  I quickly found out I cannot hold the macro lens in my hand as all the photos are blurry.  The stand setup works great - once you get the fossil focused in.  I obviously need more practice:)  This once did come out OK.  Will post the photos once I find them again.....

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And finely in my opinion the best thinking to photograph is Hash plates .


mid-Devonian from Hungry Hollow  . It is packed with little critters included in a fantastic brachiopod Devonalosia

3F0A88C1-9432-4A64-831A-032BFE617EF2.jpeg

7EE5A278-2CD7-4CEC-81BF-BCB466E31D14.jpeg

C2AEF3FE-7980-4886-BE8D-8994954BCC0F.jpeg

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16 minutes ago, Ruger9a said:

Bobby, yes I have done two fossils so far.  I quickly found out I cannot hold the macro lens in my hand as all the photos are blurry.  The stand setup works great - once you get the fossil focused in.  I obviously need more practice:)  This once did come out OK.  Will post the photos once I find them again.....

Yeah definitely takes practice and of course good light to get good pictures. Looking forward to seeing yours.  :popcorn:

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Here is a Knightia Eocena fossil fish head from the Green River Formation

FullSizeR.jpg

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It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt

 

-Mark Twain

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11 hours ago, Bobby Rico said:

And finely in my opinion the best thinking to photograph is Hash plates .


mid-Devonian from Hungry Hollow  . It is packed with little critters included in a fantastic brachiopod Devonalosia

3F0A88C1-9432-4A64-831A-032BFE617EF2.jpeg

Bobby, do you happen to know what this is?  I found something similar recently in similarly-aged rock.

 

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4 hours ago, Ruger9a said:

 I quickly found out I cannot hold the macro lens in my hand as all the photos are blurry.  The stand setup works great - once you get the fossil focused in.  I obviously need more practice:)  This once did come out OK.  Will post the photos once I find them again.....

What stand setup would that be?

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This topic gave me the motivation to try something I've been wanting to do for a little while, I have a small digital microscope type thing that's really awesome to use to look at the anatomy of my knightia fish and I've been wanting to try taking pictures through it. Here's a few photos through it.

1. A couple of vertebrae, this one didn't turn out super well.

20200114_213202.thumb.jpg.34a6a55e5c6215c4bebe7dd54489f4f9.jpg

2. A fin and some ribs, this one worked nicer.

20200114_213426.thumb.jpg.450985da1ad2a00231caf3926c9f5aa2.jpg

3. Some cool details along the edge, fins maybe? Someone please enlighten my ignorant self.

20200114_213852.thumb.jpg.2e48938f7be8120aa084f5a8d0d0c5fd.jpg

For reference here's a picture of the whole piece. The red shows what's in pic 1, the blue pic 2, and finally the green is pic 3.

20200114_214222.thumb.jpg.b642c0320aa0373c8edbd5eace352af5.jpg

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2 hours ago, Peat Burns said:

Bobby, do you happen to know what this is?  I found something similar recently in similarly-aged rock.

 

Hi Tony

My Item you asked about  it's a little specimen of the productid brachiopod Devonalosia wrightorum and from mid-Devonian from Hungry Hollow

 

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1 hour ago, Huntonia said:

This topic gave me the motivation to try something I've been wanting to do for a little while,

They worked well and I really like the rib pictures detail . Thanks for adding to my thread.

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5 hours ago, Thecosmilia Trichitoma said:

Here is a Knightia Eocena fossil fish head from the Green River Formation

Nice image almost like an abstract painting. Thank you for sharing.

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I got this not long ago. A piece of Baltic Amber with a nicely preserved spider (Araneae sp.), leaf and Midge. Eocene period 35–50 million years. Dimensions are 20×13×6 mm.

 

5c8b1c0ca1b75_ScreenShot2019-03-15at03_24_52.png.fa32a02af3c6ac87c6d96ab8adfaf948.png.2d881ac77f085e00927c3fc7e9c6b66d.png

 

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2 minutes ago, Dinoguy89 said:

piece of Baltic Amber with a nicely preserved spider (Araneae sp.), leaf and Midge.

Great details you captured. It is not easy to photograph Amber . Thanks for adding to my post.

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When you said Macro lens I thought back to m 35 MM film day's with a lens that has a macro focus range. Which leaves a narrow depth of field. My Nikon 775 digital camera does real nice with the flower setting on a tripod. These pictures are buried on this forum so I will post them again. My simple set up. I have several sizes of the kitchen racks and often have to raise them with books. The Grip it, goes back to my insects and butter fly day's. The LED table lamp is by OTT light. The two clamp lights are made by Life Gear. 

059..JPG

060..JPG

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4 hours ago, caldigger said:

What stand setup would that be?

My portable microscope (Discovery Veho VMS-004 deluxe) came with an adjustable (small) stand.  It works fine, just have to readjust with every fossil movement.  If you have a steady hand you can use just the microscope.    

20200115_053922 (2).jpg

20200115_053949 (2).jpg

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Great topic, Bobby! Thanks for starting it. :) 

 

I've posted this elsewhere, but it is one of my nicer macro photos.

 

Coprolite from the Permian of Waurika, Oklahoma. 

 

UploadDSCN6339.thumb.JPG.ed1ee42bd5e70795340ab1f0a6aaf6c0.jpg

 

For those interested, links to my topics on this material. 

LINK 1

LINK 2

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    Tim    VETERAN SHALE SPLITTER

   MOTM.png.61350469b02f439fd4d5d77c2c69da85.png      PaleoPartner.png.30c01982e09b0cc0b7d9d6a7a21f56c6.png.a600039856933851eeea617ca3f2d15f.png     Postmaster1.jpg.900efa599049929531fa81981f028e24.jpg    VFOTM.png.f1b09c78bf88298b009b0da14ef44cf0.png  VFOTM APRIL - 2015  

__________________________________________________
"In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks."
John Muir ~ ~ ~ ~   ><))))( *>  About Me      

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56 minutes ago, Fossildude19 said:

Great topic, Bobby! Thanks for starting it. :) 

 

I've posted this elsewhere, but it is one of my nicer macro photos.

 

Coprolite from the Permian of Waurika, Oklahoma. 

 

UploadDSCN6339.thumb.JPG.ed1ee42bd5e70795340ab1f0a6aaf6c0.jpg

 

For those interested, links to my topics on this material. 

LINK 1

LINK 2

Tim, outstanding fossil.  I noticed you have your name on the photos posted both here and in the links.  Is this something we all should be doing?  Just wondering.

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41OBPDqaizL._SX342_.jpg

 

I'm currently using a Hayear 14MP digital microscope with attached LED ring light to both help me pick through very tiny micro-matrix and to photograph specimens I've found in that same matrix. I pick using the least magnification (to get the widest field of view which is around 2.5 cm/1 inch) but can zoom in tighter to get more detail on really tiny specimens (usually only a few millimeters in size). The depth of field at these magnifications is paper thin (literally!) and so it is impossible to get all of what you wish to image in focus at the same time. The microscope comes with imaging software that allows you to capture video clips or take still images. I take a series of images adjusting the focal plane ever so slightly in between shots and then feed this image stack to my Helicon Focus software. It's a somewhat expensive piece of software and there are lower cost or freeware photo-stacking software options out there but this software works well and incredibly fast. It can make a hyper-focused image out of a stack of 20-30 images in under a second. After that some color balancing and cropping in Photoshop results in these type of images:

 

Balistidae (triggerfish) teeth (scale in first image 0.5 mm). They are highly derived and stumped me for a few years till I found an expert in osteichthyan teeth. :)

 

2019-10-24 14-03-33.jpg

 

2019-10-10 09-36-25.jpg     2019-10-10 09-36-08.jpg

 

A tiny and highly unusual mollusk in the genus Caecum (just a few mm long). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caecum_(gastropod)

 

2019-09-01 15-10-39.jpg

 

A tiny mole tooth (presently waiting to be identified more precisely). A very unusual find in the mostly marine micro-matrix I'm picking through.

 

2019-09-09 19-52-22.jpg

 

2019-09-09 19-52-44.jpg

 

An assortment of shark dermal denticles. The (hexagonal) specimen in the upper left is likely a lateral tooth from the crushing plate of a myliobatid ray. As it is just over a millimeter in size, it would be from a very young individual.

 

2020-01-11 13-58-33.jpg

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

 

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Nice thread Bobby! :thumbsu: I've thoroughly enjoyed it so far. I'm looking at getting one of those small USB digital microscopes so hopefully I can contribute soon.  

The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.  -Neil deGrasse Tyson

 

Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don't. -Bill Nye (The Science Guy)

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34 minutes ago, Ruger9a said:

Tim, outstanding fossil.  I noticed you have your name on the photos posted both here and in the links.  Is this something we all should be doing?  Just wondering.

It is a personal choice, but, I like to do it. I have found Fossil Forum images all over the web, and I would as least like to let people know who took them. ;) 

I use a free editing software called Photoscape, to do any post processing and watermarking. It is an easy, intuitive tool, with tons of excellent features, for making your pictures better. 

Not as confusing as some of the other editing software out there. 

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    Tim    VETERAN SHALE SPLITTER

   MOTM.png.61350469b02f439fd4d5d77c2c69da85.png      PaleoPartner.png.30c01982e09b0cc0b7d9d6a7a21f56c6.png.a600039856933851eeea617ca3f2d15f.png     Postmaster1.jpg.900efa599049929531fa81981f028e24.jpg    VFOTM.png.f1b09c78bf88298b009b0da14ef44cf0.png  VFOTM APRIL - 2015  

__________________________________________________
"In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks."
John Muir ~ ~ ~ ~   ><))))( *>  About Me      

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I use the Olympus TG-5 with one of its macro/micro settings, with in-built focus stacking for all things small, living or long dead.

ADCF9B88-77BB-429E-A314-CAD9D66C0AC2.jpeg

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...How to Philosophize with a Hammer

 

 

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3 minutes ago, Kane said:

I use the Olympus TG-5 with one of its macro/micro settings, with in-built focus stacking for all things small, living or long dead.

Now that is some detail!:default_faint:

The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.  -Neil deGrasse Tyson

 

Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don't. -Bill Nye (The Science Guy)

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