Beauty!

So far images have been coming in at 300 DPI. My initial thoughts were that >300 DPI takes too long, would result in blurred movement and gigantic files. But so much of what I see moving at 300 DPI is too small!!

It's amazing just how many bugs are moving about down there.  Many of the ones that we can see with our eyes are small enough, and move slowly enough that it would be difficult to see if we weren't speeding time up. Most of the videos that have been posted are sped up over 30,000 times.

But even so, scanning at 300 DPI isn't enough to reveal many of the details on most of what's moving down there. So I've added a second scan at 1200 DPI to target the area the leaf still (barely) occupies. The above image is the first scan, measuring ~5.75x3cm. Click it for a higher res version. I should have a very short video up of this early next week.

I've been on and off reading "The World Beneath our Feet" by James B. Nardi. I would love to learn more about what we're seeing, and be able to document within these images and videos the processes that are covered in the book. It also mentions things like Berlese Funnels, incredibly simple devices to discover more of what's in our soil.

Other random things learned today: The terms Pedology (the study of soils in their natural environment) and Edaphology (influence of soils on living things, particularly plants). Which reminds me, I should go learn from the crew over at Photosynq!