I clicked expecting it was going to be about tiny cameras taking pictures from within droplets. Stunning photos nonetheless!
Photos capture life inside a drop of seawater
11–20 of 202 posts
Re: Photos capture life inside a drop of seawater
#12> These tiny invertebrates can be found in the deepest ocean trenches and the highest alpine lakes, even in damp mosses and wet leaf litter. Walter once got a call from an Orthodox Jewish organization wanting to know if there were pieces of non-kosher creatures floating in the New York City tap water. The answer was yes. It’s hard to avoid these relatives of shrimp and lobster—Walter has studied them all over the wor…
Guidance from rabbis varies (no central source of authority in Judaism). Some orthodox rabbis will view the copepods as not kosher and suggest filtering the water. Less orthodox rabbis will say the water is fine because the copepods are not visible to the naked eye.
That frees the vision impaired a bit relative to people with good eyesight from a few things!
Re: Photos capture life inside a drop of seawater
#13too easy for the almighty
Re: Photos capture life inside a drop of seawater
#14> But copepods typically range from about 0.2 to 1.7 millimeters in length, just large enough to magnify using conventional lenses and equipment Does that mean conventional macro camera lenses or a microscope?
Macro photography most likely. Microscope images tend not to have bokehs like the ones in the article. You can use flourescent microscopy to make those glow in the dark images but the field of view is about 2 or 3 orders of magnitude too small for this.
Re: Photos capture life inside a drop of seawater
#15When I was a young kid in the early 1980s, my grandpa had a large book about Darwin's voyages and the Theory of Evolution. The book probably dated from the 1950s or 1960s and contained countless photos of fascinating creatures, reproduced with all the printing technology of the era.
Whenever we visited him, I would flip through the book and marvel at the creativity of nature.
These photos made me feel a little bit in the same way.
Re: Photos capture life inside a drop of seawater
#16> But copepods typically range from about 0.2 to 1.7 millimeters in length, just large enough to magnify using conventional lenses and equipment Does that mean conventional macro camera lenses or a microscope?
It's not inconceivable that a conventional camera could work here, although it is borderline. Quick napkin math: Sony A7RV produces 9504x6336 pixel images from 35.7x23.8mm sensor, resulting roughly 266 pixels/mm. With a 2x macro lens (Laowa has some), it would mean that 0.2mm subject would be 266x0.2x2=106 pixels across. Not exactly HD, but possibly still usable.
Re: Photos capture life inside a drop of seawater
#17Cool photos, but this makes me not want to drink tap water
Re: Photos capture life inside a drop of seawater
#18Cool photos, but this makes me not want to drink tap water
Time to drop the referral code for a Brita filter.
Re: Photos capture life inside a drop of seawater
#19I wish there were a way to "productize" this, or automate it at least.
I'm imagining some sort of aquarium-like tank you stock with ocean water that is able to maintain the microscopic life, allow them to flourish. Meanwhile, some sort of slow or periodic pump draws aquarium water into an attached, miniature "photography studio" where an appropriate camera+lens feeds a constant live stream to a display or to the web or to a Bond-villain's giant projector in their lair.
What a wonderful "screensaver" to have when the occasional appearance of a micro organism graces your screen. Perhaps too there are as-yet undiscovered species we might find with such a device?
Re: Photos capture life inside a drop of seawater
#20Those are beautiful photographs. Makes you wonder if we'll find similar things on Europa if we stuck in a pipette.