Sternotomis pulchra - face (stack)

A colorful speciment of longhorn beetle at 25mm, originally from Cameroon. Note the eyes wrapping around the antennae sockets, visible in some of the shots.

comments (6)

Christine Young

Lion

Wow, it's so perfect! Posted 3 years ago
1. Ferdy Christant
  
  Lion
  
  Thank you, this is the "drama" shot: single light source. Posted 3 years ago
2. 1. Christine Young
    
    Lion
    
    Nice! It's amazing perfect with lighting, focus, and everything. Was there not much debris or did you have to clean it? Posted 3 years ago
  2. 1. Ferdy Christant
      
      Lion
      
      Thanks. I still suck at cleaning but lately trying to take it more serious. Reason being that it costs so much effort to produce these shots that it really angers me when its ruined due to dirt.
      
      This one was reasonably clean. I start with this small hand pump (not sure what its called) to blow off loose dust. Typically this doesn't do that much as most dust is not that loose, but it only takes a few secs.
      
      Then, if it's not a very hairy subject, I submerge it in warmish water with dish soap and rock it back and forth. If I'm not in a rush to process it, I may just leave it in this water for hours, but I'm becoming more conservative in doing this. The water may expel new fluids from the specimen, which then dry up and get stuck, making the situation worse. When I can already tell that the subject has very sticky dirt, I use Decon90 instead of water, such as on this subject:
      
      (had to do two rounds of Decon90 on that one)
      
      My latest gotcha is that none of the above things do much...if you don't SCRUB. Most dirt is not loose and soaking will only remove a small part of it. So I have these tiny sticks with a tiny cotton-like tip at the end that I use for that. It doesn't leave behind any fibers. I dip it in water (or Decon 90) and then scrub very carefully. When done, rinse, otherwise you only moved the dirt.
      
      Drying after the above: preferably overnight or half a day. It looks dry after an hour, but very much isn't. Posted 3 years ago
    2. 1. Christine Young
        
        Lion
        
        I mostly use the air blower just to free the most obvious dust, but rarely wash specimens.
        
        Very good point about the scrubbing! More often than not, a little dip in soapy water isn't enough. The initial reason that I rarely wash specimens is because so many of my earlier ones were old and barely made it through the photo session. They would have disintegrated in a bath. But, I should consider it for any specimens I buy because many are covered in crusty dirt that is really plastered on. Posted 3 years ago
      2. Ferdy Christant
        
        Lion
        
        When the specimen is too fragile to submerge, you can also just scrub it with a small applicator, dipped in hot water, alcohol, etc.
        
        That said, the need for advanced cleaning strongly depends on magnification. A lot of dirt only becomes visible at higher magnifications so if not doing that, keep it simple, I'd say. Posted 3 years ago