Bug's eye view
March 11, 2012 6:59 AM   Subscribe

Photographer Ondrej Pakan takes macro pictures of insects. Pakan's portfolio on 500px. (completely SFW in spite of the "nudity" warning, unless you work with prudish insects) posted by Philosopher Dirtbike (9 comments total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
Bug eyes are SO COOL.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:20 AM on March 11, 2012 [1 favorite]


These are great shots. I hadn't thought that this is a great way to catch bugs while they aren't moving.
posted by rotifer at 7:27 AM on March 11, 2012


When the bugs appear to have "pupils" in those pictures -- that's just an optical illusion with the angle of light going into the ommatidia, right? Or do some insects actually have specialized areas on their eyes?
posted by Countess Elena at 8:10 AM on March 11, 2012


This has changed my mind: please never walk me out in the morning dew again.
posted by hal9k at 8:35 AM on March 11, 2012


that's just an optical illusion with the angle of light going into the ommatidia, right? Or do some insects actually have specialized areas on their eyes?

From my own macro photo experiments, most of the time it is just the light, but i've noticed that jumping spiders have pretty neat eyes that are more complex than other insects. You can see what sort of looks like a pupil, even if it isn't actually one. From wikipedia: "On the other hand jumping spiders' secondary eyes have no tapeta. Jumping spiders' visual acuity exceeds by a factor of ten that of dragonflies, which have by far the best vision among insects; in fact the human eye is only about five times sharper than a jumping spider's. They achieve this by a telephoto-like series of lenses, a four-layer retina and the ability to swivel their eyes and integrate images from different stages in the scan. The downside is that the scanning and integrating processes are relatively slow."

(i am not a spider scientist, just an enthusiast.)
posted by usagizero at 8:48 AM on March 11, 2012 [1 favorite]


usagizero's photo does have a reflection of a macro ring light in it. What stands out for me about the jumping spiders is that the curvature on the jumping spider's main eyes is quite small!
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:52 AM on March 11, 2012


It occurred to me that the one I labelled "Friendly bug with a water hat" should *totally* be an advice animal.
posted by Philosopher Dirtbike at 8:57 AM on March 11, 2012


Cartier wishes they could make stuff this cool
posted by Redhush at 10:17 AM on March 11, 2012 [2 favorites]


More of his work.

Mantis.
posted by stirfry at 10:19 AM on March 11, 2012


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