Microscope photography!!!

Algae and amoebas at 400 times magnification.

Did you know that if you hold up a regular digital camera up to the eyepiece of a microscope you can take a great picture of a magnified slide! I didn’t. And I really didn’t think it would work when I tried it, but the results are remarkable. With a somewhat steady hand you can also make decent animations.

If you look carefully you can see the amoebas zipping around. I also have a really cool larger version too, which shows the entire slide..

I’ve never been very good at identifying things (I’m a lumper not a splitter) so all I think I can say for sure is that there are algae and protozoans in the picture. BiologyCorner has a nice identification guide for organisms usually found in ponds, which is part of one of their lessons, Biodiversity of Ponds.

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