How to become a polychaeta photographer

20 minutes about the equipment and 10 about something else

There are some things you will need:

Camera Macro lens A lot of light Beautiful worm Patience and time Photoshop

Most important settings of the camera are:

Exposure Aperture ISO

Long exposure = blurry images, especially if worm is moving. Good exposure starts from 1/80 sec. At 1/200 you can use strobe and it almost freezes any movement. Open aperture = very small depth of eld. Good aperture value starts from f9 and ends at f18, higher values are not suitable for good results, because of diffraction effects High ISO = noisy images. Good ISO is 100-200 on most cameras. Modern cameras have good quality at ISO 800

Macro lens means magnication ratio 1:1 With full frame cameras its a real world picture 35mm wide, like sensor size. With cropped sensor its 24mm and less Some lenses like Canon MP-E have magnication ratio from 1:1 to 5:1 and its really unique Also there are close-up rings and reversed lenses. It can give magnication up to 3:1 but the quality sometimes isnt good

Light. Its the most important thing!

- Constant light - lamps, some cold diode lighting, light from the window or right from the sun. Usable only when the worm is dead or relaxed. - Impulse light - strobes. They are powerful and suitable for photographing moving animals.

Beautiful worms? There are a lot of them!

Just few words about underwater photography

You cant take photos of some processes in the laboratory, only in natural environment

Nereis exploring the world

Nereis eaten by polynoid Lepidonotus squamatus

Nereis eaten by gastropoda Buccinum undatum

Chone infundibuliformis

Serpula uschakovi (Japan sea)

But there are several things that you can shoot only in the lab

Like uorescence

Like pharynx and jaws

Like other small parts and details of animals

Cirratulus cirratus

Thats all. Thanks for the attention!

Now lets go and have some practice!