More Mossy Magnification

Everyone knows about my love of magnification, including my family. This Christmas I got this great lens for my cell phone camera from my sister. Last year I wrote about a similar magnification lens that sticks to your cell phone camera allowing you to take magnified photos. It worked pretty well, but I like this one even better. The rubber band holds the lens snugly in place and it is large enough that I wasn't afraid of it falling of or loosing it. I also like that it loads up on a little card that can be easily tucked in a wallet or pocket. It makes the whole setup pretty handy. 

You can purchase your own at this website. 

Overall I think that the lens takes good photos. The images are sharp and the focal area is good. The only issue is one I have mentioned before with lenses mounted directly onto a cell phone. Without a mount/stand it is hard to hold the phone steady enough to keep the plants in focus. For these photos I balanced one corner of the phone on the ground to hold it steady, which worked pretty well. 

February 2015 Desktop Calendar

Happy belated February! This past month was a whirlwind of science and adventures for me. I spent the past month in Chile attending the International Association of Bryologists conference and then I went backpacking for a few weeks. I have hundreds of bryophyte photos and many fun stories to tell. As soon as I get settled in my plan is to share many of them with you all here. 

So stay tuned for tales from Chile. In the meantime enjoy the Tetraplodon pictured below. We saw it while walking around in a Sphagnum-dominated peat bog barefoot! 

1 - Single click on the image to open it up in a new window. (If you use the image directly from the blog post you will lose a lot of resolution.)

2 - Right-click (or ctrl-click) on the image, and chose the option that says, "Set as Desktop Background" or "Use Image as Desktop Picture" or "Save Image As...". The wording may vary. (If saving the image to your computer is the only option, then locate it on your computer and choose the "Set as Desktop Background" or "Use Image as Desktop Picture" option from there.)

3 - If the image does not fit your desktop neatly, you may have to adjust the image (Mac: System Preferences - Desktop and Screen Saver - Desktop; Windows: Control Panel - Display - Desktop) and choose "Fill screen" as the display mode of your background image.