I also wanted to mention Hotaling 2020, a recently published study of somewhat older data on jokla-mys (pdf link which will probably expire at some point but works as of this post).
With emphasis added,
Hotaling 2020 said:
[G]lacier moss balls (sometimes called “glacier mice”) can develop from impurities on ice surfaces and represent a relatively rare biological phenomenon. These ovoid-shaped conglomerations of dirt and moss are only found on some glacier surfaces and provide key habitats for invertebrate colonization. [...] Here, we describe the movement and persistence of glacier moss balls on the Root Glacier in southcentral Alaska, USA. We show that glacier moss balls move an average of 2.5 cm per day in herd-like fashion initially to the south and later towards the southwest, and their movements are positively correlated with glacier ablation. Surprisingly, the dominant moss ball movement direction does not align with the prevailing wind or downslope directions, nor with the dominant direction of solar radiation.
If you're inclined to share (or already have somewhere) some insights about camera support for this kind of thing, I'd be interested... maybe in a dedicated thread for discussion... or even a link to resources elsewhere that you know of.
Having some sort of camera supports for photomacrography thread here makes sense, I think. There's loads at photomacrography.net but they're almost all devoted to studio setups using linear motion rails. Practical field setups and use of m43 autofocus bracketing hardly ever come up even though they make the process dramatically easier.
To give a somewhat succinct, moss oriented, answer
I use reversed enlarging lenses and Olympus UIS2 objectiveswith the 45-175 and the plate described here on a Sunwayfoto MFR-150S I found used with a ballhead and a tripod with the centre column removed to flat to ground. The compact front lenses, 45-175's fixed length design, milled plate, and stage friction on the MFR-150S get the basic stability to where a two second self timer is nearly always sufficient. Even on fairly firm ground the photographer has to hold still whilst the bracket runs, though, as field setups don't rigidly join the camera and subject. At 10x it's easy to fail a bracket by shifting your weight.
It's a huge help mosses' exohydry minimizes gametophyte extension beyond the boundary layer. Gametophytes therefore often have little to no wind induced subject motion. This doesn't hold for sporophytes---they have to be able to disperse their spores, after all---and it also doesn't hold for extended tripods on most natural substrates if there's much wind. At 1x camera windage is rarely of an issue, at 10x I've sometimes given up and gone to photograph something else. With epiphytic mosses tree sway can also be prohibitive, moreso at higher magnifications.
For forest interiors with really soft surfaces there's fewer wind problems and much greater photographer stillness problems. Sometimes you can set a 10 second timer and back away but by, oh, definitely 3x or so there start to be problems with your weight moving away invalidating the stack depth or changing the composition. Particularly at magnifications where I'm using microscope objectives I try to set up the bracket so I'm in as stable a position as I can manage while working the camera. Also, bracketing at 30 fps makes it not hard to hold your breath and stay fairly still through a stack.
The problem I had with the last image on the previous page as I ended up having to reach over the camera to get lighting in the right position. Holding my arm out to do that meant lots of vibration. So I overbracketed, culled the frames with worst rolling shutter problems, and rejected some substacks from the final stack of stacks. Inelegant, but successful and not too much of a hassle. For some time, I've been debating a number of mini-pod like arrangements which would help somewhat. But haven't come up with anything I'm excited about yet.
Water droplets visible through Plagiomnium insigne costa (midrib) and unistratose leaf cells, 904x4 stack at 9.4x.
At forum resolution it's helpful to crop in for the chloroplasts and cell wall jointing. The chloroplasts are around 7 μm across and the cells roughly 50 μm.
For as much as I complain about Helicon, this was a tricky alignment due to tens of microns of camera vibration on a soft forest floor and 7.6.1 handled it quite well.
With the Olympus cameras, delayed shutter with stacking/bracketing is not possible, unfortunately.
I use the wired shutter release.
Recently, in a spell of wet weather, I spent a hour going over my tripod with a set of hexagonal keys, tightening joints. What a pleasure it is to have beautifully smooth operation now.
Spiked feet, and a centre column that comes out and extends like a crane to position the cam directly under, and in the centre of tripodial effect works quite well.
But I’m not at 1X very often. Heaven forbid extreme magnifications!
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
A recent pic of hydrated sphagnum moss on the forest floor, with a small entaloma species mushroom as a focal point.
Weirdly, somehow in translation the pic has been turned from portrait to landscape orientation.... go figure!
Hi, check for use of orientation EXIF tags. It's generally preferable to encode the image in the desired orientation. Should be straightforward to fix the image and reupload.
I don't think that's Spahgnum as capitulae and the 4+2 internode branch structure are absent. Allison 1964 or similar should be helpful in knowing what to look for, though I would recommend at least a 10x hand lens (BelOMOs are good and would be about NZD 50 if they're priced similar to here).
I have the same tripod and love the angles it can achieve and it can get up quite high, great bit of kit. Getting myself in position to frame up the shot can be a challenge though
[image removed due to acquisition by VerticalScope]
340 stack starting near 1x. Species mingling on a log. Bit of an interesting one as the recession of space down the log is steep relative to depth of field at 1x, making it tricky to guess how well the rosette of leaves (I suspect Plagiomnium venustum) would work as a rule of thirds anchor.
[image removed due to acquisition by VerticalScope] Kindbergia oregana, 220 stack 1.8x. A bit unusual in letting the stack drop down to some the sub-branches behind the main composition isn't usually this successful.
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