Microsculpture

April 26, 2016 8:04 AM

Photographer Levon Biss has perfected an approach to macro photography which involves compositing roughly eight to ten thousand images into a final image of unsurpassed clarity and detail. He has collaborated with an entomologist at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History to photograph unique insect specimens. Prints of his photographs in large format (up to three meters across) will be exhibited at the museum from 27 May through 30 October, but if you can't make it in person you can view the zoomable images on his site or watch a video which explains the history of the project and provides details of his process. (previously)
posted by Rhomboid (7 comments total)

This is just incredible:

“Each image from the Microsculpture project is created from around 8000 individual photographs. The pinned insect is placed on an adapted microscope stage that enables me to have complete control over the positioning of the specimen in front of the lens. I shoot with a 36-megapixel camera that has a 10x microscope objective attached to it via a 200mm prime lens.

I photograph the insect in approximately 30 different sections, depending on the size of the specimen. Each section is lit differently with strobe lights to bring out the micro sculptural beauty of that particular section of the body. For example, I will light and shoot just one antennae, then after I have completed this area I will move onto the eye and the lighting set up will change entirely to suit the texture and contours of that part of the body. I continue this process until I have covered the whole surface area of the insect.

Due to the inherent shallow depth of field that microscope lenses provide, each individual photograph only contains a tiny slither of focus. To enable me to capture all the information I need to create a fully focused image, the camera is mounted onto an electronic rail that I program to move forward 10 microns between each shot. To give you an idea of how far that is, the average human hair is around 75 microns wide. The camera will then slowly move forward from the front of the insect to the back creating a folder of images that each have a thin plane of focus. Through various photo-stacking processes I flatten these images down to create a single picture that has complete focus throughout the full depth of the insect.

I repeat this process over the entire body of the insect and once I have 30 fully focused sections I bring them together in Photoshop to create the final image. From start to finish, a final photograph will take around 3 weeks to shoot, process and retouch.”

posted by cubby at 8:27 AM on April 26, 2016 [3 favorites]

God, amazing. Thanks.
posted by Huck500 at 8:28 AM on April 26, 2016

Was very excited to look at these images of clarity and detail...until I saw it was insects. *shudder*
posted by tunewell at 8:50 AM on April 26, 2016

All future macrophotography is ruined for me now. This is brilliant.
posted by Qubit at 8:51 AM on April 26, 2016

When I zoomed in, I quickly discovered that I did not want to see bugs that close up.

My squeamishness aside, amazing work!
posted by Archer25 at 10:03 AM on April 26, 2016

Came here to say how amazing these are, but see that has been used already, so I will say they are amazingly beautiful instead.
posted by TedW at 10:46 AM on April 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

Stunning. I'm wondering how much of that work could be handed off to software - if you can figure out which bit of the image is in-focus, you should be able to mask away the rest and automatically stitch the fragments together.
posted by Leon at 11:11 AM on April 26, 2016 [1 favorite]