Amber Photo Tricks

Amber frequently preserves the remains of small soft bodied animals like insects and spiders. Some amber preserves large insects, like the wasp below that can be seen with the naked eye, while others hide their tiny fossils amongst other debris. Amber requires a little work to see what’s trapped inside. Thanks to the rock show, I’ve had a chance to tinker with some very well preserved amber and i’ve figured out a few tricks to get good pictures with the pencam.

Lighting is crucial to getting good pictures. (Possibly, the most obvious statement about photography) In the case of the pencam, it's onboard lights are a disadvantage. Frequently you just get a glare that blinds you to what’s below the surface, not unlike the glare how the pitcher water surface blinds you to what’s below. The obvious solution is backlighting. I found a simple LED light behind the amber brings out the hidden internal details. Perhaps, too much internal detail. It lights up the internal cracks in the amber sometimes. I found that switching to UV backlighting eliminates that problem. (Not sure what inspired me to try UV, I heard some amber was UV active and I think I just wanted to see what amber looks like under UV.) Amber does look very cool under UV, but it seems that it also hides the internal cracks. UV backlighting really does bring out the insect or spider inside the amber.

Check out the lighting effects when filming a 5$ piece of Burmese amber that I got on ebay.

(Note: this was filmed through the plastic of the display case. And the wasp was is in the larger amber pieces.) (I forgot I posted about this amber earlier. https://drmayhem12.wixsite.com/insidepitcherplants/post/insects-in-amber )