Leaves of ice

Snowflake photo: Leaves of ice (2560 x 1920)

Prints available at Artist website (mirrors at Pixels and FineArtAmerica), RedBubble.com.
Licenses for commercial use - at Shutterstock.com, 500px.com.

I'll try to process more snowflake photos from previous winters till the next season. There is lots of nice crystals waiting processing!

This is quite big fernlike dendrite snowflake, around 6 millimeters from tip to tip. This crystal have good symmetry and interesting wavy "leaves", which reminds me shape of oak tree leaves.

6 serial RAW photos, taken as quick sequence, was averaged to boost signal-to-noise ratio of this picture. Background: dark grey woolen fabric, diffused light of grey cloudy sky, external optics Helios 44, January 2014, Moscow.

This snowflake available as ultra HD wallpaper:

If you want to see more snowflakes, you can surf all snowflake photos.
And here is article about snowflake macro photography.

Pollen grains of Alcea rosea (common hollyhock)

Macro photo: pollen grains of Alcea Rosea, or common hollyhock (800 x 600)

This is smallest object i've ever captured (except for tiny snowflakes from this ice dust collection). But for pollen this is very big grains (i've tried several other flower species, but all of them have so tiny grains that my macro setup simply cannot get acceptable picture: magnification is too low). Even on these "big" grains you can easily see my optics limitations, though i've tried my best to squezze maximum details from available source shots.

For two grains in focus i used averaged stacks of 64 identical RAWs (128 shots total). Two grains captured separately and combined in one picture (two unfocused grains taken from first series and averaged along with focused one). Thanks to tiny size of grains, they fit completely in DOF, even with their spherical shape: no focus stacking needed.

Gear: my usual "snowflake" macro setup (i described it in article about snowflake macro photography). Daylight from left side, diffused through white plastic bag. Background: black glass plate.

Here is comparison table of cropped grain in 1:1 scale: single JPEG and RAW, unprocessed and post-processed averaged stack:

Here you'll find another photo: stamen of Field Scabious with pink pollen grains:

Wasp

Snowflake photo: Wasp portrait (3304 x 2478)

Prints available at Artist website, RedBubble.com.
Licenses for commercial use - at Shutterstock.com, Marketplace.500px.com.

This is focus stack of dead insect (found it under window). Captured with my usual "snowflake" macro setup (i described it in article about snowflake macro photography). 120 source RAW photos was used (20 groups with different focus, each group contains 6 identical shots for averaging).

Daylight from window at left side, diffused through white plastic bag, and reflected from opposite side with foil. Background: light blue paper.

Details in 1:1 scale:

Four directions

Snowflake macro photo: Four directions (1200 x 900)

Prints available at Artist website (mirrors at Pixels and FineArtAmerica), RedBubble.com.
Licenses for commercial use - at Shutterstock.com.

Triangular snowflakes are one of my favorite types. Though most of them are small, like this crystal (around 1 millimeter in size or slightly bigger), they attract my attention any time i see them: these triangles are easily noticeable, thanks to their unusual shape, and visually differs from other snowflakes, even with naked eye! In fact, these "triangular" crystals are hexagons, with three long and three short sides, but they looks like triangle for our eyes. This snow crystal have slightly irregular shape, resembling a trapezium, and contains interesting internal pattern of straight lines and "arrows", pointing outwards.

I used glass background with LED back light and external lens Helios 44 (as additional magnifier) for my camera Canon Powershot A650is, powered by CHDK firmware. 8 identical RAW photos was averaged to boost signal-to-noise ratio of this image.

Here is version in alternate colors:

Snowflake macro photo: Four directions (alternate) (1200 x 900)

Prints available at Artist website (mirrors at Pixels and FineArtAmerica), RedBubble.com.
Licenses for commercial use - at Shutterstock.com.

That day (January 9, 2015) i was lucky to capture another triangular snowflake, Enigma:

If you want to see more snowflakes, you can browse through all snowflake pictures.
Here you'll find snowflake photo wallpapers in numerous resolutions and screen proportions, up to Ultra HD 4K.
And here is article about snowflake macro photography.