ledlyt - webcam photomicrography
There are a few general sins to confess here. The photos are strongly biased towards small water inhabitants, since that is the business of Microcosm Consulting, operated by Dr Barbara Bowles. I will put names where I can, but I am no biologist. Some artwork treatment has been used, but this has not extended to any form of 'painting' under control of the mouse. All treatment has taken the form of conventional manipulations such as brightness, hue and contrast, plus a few Photoshop-style plug-ins I have personally written for pixel analysis and image 'cleaning up' over the whole image area.As regards the size of the cells shown, the anabaena circinalis photograph has individual cells measuring at about ten microns in diameter. Normal eye microscopy with full professional equipment can just about resolve one micron. I would estimate from this the webcam photo system is resolving to somewhere between 1.5 and 2 microns.
anabaena circinalis
oocystis
This is a colony inside a common outer membrane, which can just be seen.
nauplii
A large inhabitant at lower magnification. With a small sensor area, being unable to reduce magnification enough to 'get it all in' is quite common. Odd strings of a.circinalis in the background give the scale.
