Digital images

[Kenelm Philip]

	There have been a number of comments and queries recently about
butterfly/moth images on web sites--but little or no discussion of how
those images were produced.
	The brute-force method would be to take color photographs, and
then either scan them, or make a photo-CD. This is awkward and time-
consuming. I have become interested of late in more direct methods of
digitizing butterflies, and have experimented with using an H-P color
scanner to scan de-pinned spread specimens (which can work quite well),
and with a digital camera with true macro capability that can photograph
pinned specimens (approximately the same resolution across the specimen
as the scanner). The scanner, of course, is limited to spread material--
which may not interest some Leps-L members. The digital camera (with
a 10 to 1 zoom lens) may also be capable of live butterfly photography
to some extent--but that's not a current option in Fairbanks until next
summer.  :-)

	I would be interested to know what methods others have tried
(and with what success). 

							Ken Philip
fnkwp at aurora.alaska.edu