The making of the photos

The lighting is essential. Light sources should be diffuse, preferably simulating daylight conditions, i.e. around 5500 Kelvin. To achieve that I use a soft box and the ring light as shown above. Both are adjustable to the specific needs for every sample. 

People often ask me how I make the photos, so here is a short explanation.

I have a Canon 90D camera, the main reason for using it being the fact that it has 32.5 megapixels, which is the first advantage for taking high-resolution pictures. Then I have 3 lenses: the Canon 60 mm 1:1 macro for thumbnails above 1 cm; the Laowa 100 mm 2:1 macro for objects from approximately 3 tot 10 mm, and the Laowa 25 mm 2.5/5:1 ultramacro for smaller objects. To handle even the smallest objects I also have extension rings up to 126 mm. Ultimately I can handle objects as small as 0,15 mm this way. But of course that is only possible through stacking: the whole thing (camera + lens + ext rings) is mounted on a WeMacro stack rail, that itself is attached as firmly as possible to the workbench - which is necessary to avoid any vibrations while taking pictures. The stack rail allows taking frames with a distance of 1 micron (1/1000 mm). Depending on the object I normally take between 50 and 150 frames at a distance between 6 and 30 micron - which you have to try out for every new object. The whole process is computer controlled by Helicon Remote: I decide on the presets, the computer does the work. The resulting stack of frames is rendered into one photo by Helicon Focus, and after that I do the post-processing through Lightroom, Photoshop Express and Photoshop Camera - which is handy work with my Apple pencil on the iPad. When I'm satisfied I save the photo and publish it, if not I simply dispose it and start again.