I’ve Never Seen Macroscopic Images As Incredibly Sharp As These Ones

I’ve Never Seen Macroscopic Images As Incredibly Sharp As These Ones

This is a blister beetle photographed with a Macropod — “a low cost, portable, three-dimensional imaging solution” that allows scientists to break the depth of field limitations typical of macro photography by taking multiple exposures and merging them into a single ultra-sharp image using software.

[Macropod] overcomes the extreme Depth of Field (DOF) limitations inherent in optics designed to image smaller specimens. Normally, lenses designed for macro will only render a very small fraction of the depth of targeted specimen in sharp focus at any one exposure. The Macropod allows the user to select and make multiple exposures in precise increments along the Z-axis (depth) such that each exposure’s area of sharp focus overlaps with the previous and next exposure.

These source images are then transferred to a computer and merged by an image-stacking program. The stacking program finds and stitches together only the focused pixels from each exposure into one image.

Ingenious! The results are amazing.

I’ve Never Seen Macroscopic Images As Incredibly Sharp As These Ones

I’ve Never Seen Macroscopic Images As Incredibly Sharp As These Ones

I’ve Never Seen Macroscopic Images As Incredibly Sharp As These Ones

I’ve Never Seen Macroscopic Images As Incredibly Sharp As These Ones

Black wasp

I’ve Never Seen Macroscopic Images As Incredibly Sharp As These Ones

I’ve Never Seen Macroscopic Images As Incredibly Sharp As These Ones

I’ve Never Seen Macroscopic Images As Incredibly Sharp As These Ones

I’ve Never Seen Macroscopic Images As Incredibly Sharp As These Ones

I’ve Never Seen Macroscopic Images As Incredibly Sharp As These Ones

Mouldy orange

I’ve Never Seen Macroscopic Images As Incredibly Sharp As These Ones

Bumble bee

I’ve Never Seen Macroscopic Images As Incredibly Sharp As These Ones

I’ve Never Seen Macroscopic Images As Incredibly Sharp As These Ones

The tongue of bumble bee.

I’ve Never Seen Macroscopic Images As Incredibly Sharp As These Ones

The tip of the tongue.

Human eye

I’ve Never Seen Macroscopic Images As Incredibly Sharp As These Ones

Orange jumping spider

I’ve Never Seen Macroscopic Images As Incredibly Sharp As These Ones

I’ve Never Seen Macroscopic Images As Incredibly Sharp As These Ones

I’ve Never Seen Macroscopic Images As Incredibly Sharp As These Ones

Here’s an explanation of how it works:


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