. The Canadian field-naturalist. 1980 JOHNSTON: NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY APPARATUS 449 tus against the shoulder and have the shutter release in the hand, on the grip. The camera is mounted in a manner to allow easy viewing and focusing. Several colors of velvet are used as uniform non- reflective backgrounds. Using a consistent back- ground such as this gives very comparable results and allows, for instance, all photographs of one species to be compared directly without having to make numer- ous allowances for lighting, background, etc. For my work, additional apparati were constructed to aid in pho
. The Canadian field-naturalist. 1980 JOHNSTON: NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY APPARATUS 449 tus against the shoulder and have the shutter release in the hand, on the grip. The camera is mounted in a manner to allow easy viewing and focusing. Several colors of velvet are used as uniform non- reflective backgrounds. Using a consistent back- ground such as this gives very comparable results and allows, for instance, all photographs of one species to be compared directly without having to make numer- ous allowances for lighting, background, etc. For my work, additional apparati were constructed to aid in photographing live amphibians and reptiles. First, small plexiglass tanks were designed to allow photographing larval amphibians still in water (Fig- ure 2). The tank has two narrow V-shaped compart- ments to hold the swimming larvae and also to restrict their movements somewhat. Behind each small com- partment is an additional parallel piece of plexiglass which creates a slot to hold pieces of velvet for back- ground. The complete tank with two compartments stands on an extended base which raises the com- partments off the work surface to make it easier to approach and to photograph the specimens. This tank has allowed aquatic larvae to be photographed with the same results as adult specimens (Figure 3). Second, to increase the maximum possible magnifi- cation, a 3X Vivitar Automatic Tele Converter has been incorporated into the system. When in use, it is mounted between the bellows and camera. With this arrangement the converter merely triples the effect of the bellows and 100-mm bellows lens, whereas if placed with the lens it alters the optics sufficiently to render the apparatus no longer effective. This means that the reproduction size can be increased to life size. A related increase in flash settings is necessary to allow for a higher exposure value (Table 2).. Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced
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