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My Rapala
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| [Note Guidelines] Photographer's Note |
In 1985 I was fortunate to be a member of Project Wallace, the Royal Entomological Society's major expedition in Sulawesi. One of my great joys during that time was to discover a new species of the Thecline Lycaenid genus Rapala, commonly known as Flashes in India and elsewhere.
Once I realised I had a new species, specimens were sent to my colleague in Japan, Yusuke Takanami, and he included its description in a paper published in Tyo-to-Ga in 1992. He was kind enough to give the species my name, so this is a male of Rapala cassidyi.
Rapala is a large genus and its taxonomy is still rather tentative, but there is some information on the web here and some more illustrations of museum specimens here.
The photographs I have from that expedition may well be the only pictures of this species live in its natural habitat and this is the first time that I have posted one anywhere. So I hope this will be of interest to my butterfly friends on TN.
This is another scan from a 35mm slide. AS the light in the forest is naturally quite low, macro such as this has to be done with flash so pictures of mine from that era tend to have this kind of dark BG. In this case, the flash was a Pentax ring flash with TTL metering and the results seem to be quite able to pass the test of time.
I never saw one of these hairstreaks resting with the wings open, so to see what the upper surface is like you have to look at the colected specimens illustrated on the web referenced above.
The picture has not been cropped, as this was the full-frame 35mm composition. Maturally, the scan has been resized and sharpened (90/0.6/0) a little for TN.
A few more remarks about scanning, as some of you have commented on this slightly problemmatical issue. Obviously, its best to start with a clean slide, out of its glass casing. The OpticFilm 7200i scanner has quite comprehensive dust and scratch removal tools. These take time and reduce work rate somewhat when scanning a series of slides, but patience has its benefits. Colous balance has to be watched carefully, too. Even so, slides tend to have a fair amount of background noise from the digitisation. My recent discovery of Neat Image has helped me clean up scans quite noticeably, as this picture shows. So it is possible to get reasonable results; time is the only issue. |
taba, uleko, marcellr, Maite, Harm-digitaal has marked this note useful
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- taba
![Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Star Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 463 W: 126 N: 268]](http://i1.treknature.com/misc/g-g-g.gif)
(1508) - [2007-12-15 4:12]
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Hi Alan
nice capture and a very good POV.
nice colors and BG
well done.
Taba
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- uleko
(23442)
- [2007-12-15 4:31]
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Hello Alan,
What a fantastic experience to find a new species and to have it named after you! Congratulations!! I think Hairstreaks are very special and this one is very beautiful too. Considering the age of the photo it's pretty good showing fine details and colours.
Well done!
Many thanks, Ulla
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- batu
(10976)
- [2007-12-15 5:51]
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Hello Alan,
this is an extraordinary contribution to TN showing this unique species by a picture from the pre-digital aera. Considering that it is based on a scan, you achieved a pretty good quality.
At the moment, I try to digitalize my slides by taking a picture with my digital camera. I also tried to scan the slides but the results were not really convincing.
Best wishes, Peter
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- Ric
![Silver Note Writer [C: 4 W: 0 N: 22]](http://i1.treknature.com/misc/n-n-s.gif)
(136) - [2007-12-15 7:20]
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Good photo Alan.
I am very well surprised when I discovered that this is a scan, you get a good quality.
Regards
Ricard
Ciao Alan,
complimenti per l'ottima elaborazione della foto con lo scanner.
Ma complimenti soprattutto per avere scoperto questo splendido Licenide, che giustamente oggi porta il tuo nome.
Grazie per avercelo mostrato,
Marcello
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- Maite
(4888)
- [2007-12-23 8:36]
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How beautiful!!
Really marvellous shot!
Thank you very much for this beauty anf for the valuable note.
![Gold Star Critiquer/Silver Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 208 W: 38 N: 1012]](http://i1.treknature.com/misc/g-s-g.gif)
(3514)