Focus stacking stomata under the microscope

One of my other interests besides photography is science. In my day job I work in the scientific field and often find myself combining these interests. Today, I thought I would share how I photographed some leaf stomata under the microscope. This particular image I photographed as part of my 52 frames project in November 24.

Parts of a plant

For those unfamiliar with stomata, they are tiny openings or pores, usually found on the underside of leaves. The purpose of them is to regulate gas exchange, and control water loss.

There are various ways to view these microscopic parts of the leave. One is to get an imprint using nail varnish. Another, and my favourite technique, is to look directly at the leaves of the tradescantia plant. Viewing these leaves is an impressive sight. The purple and green colours just pop out from under the lens.

Stomata under the microscope. The underside of a tradescantia leaf for November 24

Photographing small cells

Now it is easy to capture some great images under a microscope, using a mobile phone. It can be tricky to line up the camera with the eyepiece. Once you do you can get some great shots!

However, not being content with the shallow depth of field, I decided to play with some focus stacking. This techniques allows you to focus on different areas of the image. Then by blending them, the photograph is sharper and more elements of it are in focus.

For this image I captured 72 images. Between each shot I adjusted the fine focus on the microscope by a tiny increment. As I create a lot of images using this technique, I treated myself to some specialist software. To stack this image I used Helicon Soft to help me blend the images together. I have previously used Photoshop, with mixed results. I find Helicon give me better results, with fewer errors.

Follow for more behind the scenes techniques.

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