Within the last 15 years, digital technology has revolutionized photography.  Not only are individual images easier and cheaper to produce, but the now 'taken-for-granted' internet allows literally billions of people access to information-- including images, routinely, and on a world-wide basis.  These two facts, ease of production and world-wide access, facilitated and in a sense necessitated the production of a website such as this. 

Photography in the field was accomplished using a Cannon® Elan II film camera and Sensia® 100 Film by Fuji.  Slides were digitized using a Nikon® LS1000 35mm film scanner and  cropped/ sized in Adobe Photoshop® 6.0.  

Insect images at this site have been produced with three different digital technologies:

Orthoptera images were produced using a Hewlett-Packard® Scanjet 3C flatbed scanner.  Chilled specimens were placed directly on the scanning surface and covered with a unit pinning tray (size B).  This procedure enabled the capture of the often evanescent colors found in living specimens while the unit tray provided a uniform background color.  Final images were color corrected (where necessary) with direct comparison to the specimen and using Adobe Photoshop® 5.0.

Lepidoptera images were taken with a Nikon Coolpix® 5000 digital camera and color corrected (as necessary) using Adobe Photoshop® 6.0.  Images were halved, placed on a uniform background, and standardized to show a right side of an image.  This allows for high resolution images with less redundant data.  Other larger insects were photographed using this system.

Smaller insects (most Coleoptera, Heteroptera, Hymenoptera, and others) were photographed using an Auto-Montage® computer imaging system (Syncroscopy Corp., a division of Synoptics Ltd.) with a JVC®  KY-F750 digital camera and Leica® M420 binocular dissection microscope.  Images were color corrected (where necessary) by comparison to the actual specimen and placed on a standardized background using Adobe Photoshop® 6.0. 

Unless otherwise noted, images were taken by Gerald Fauske, Hymenoptera by Patrick Beauzay, and Corixidae by Paul Tinerella.