Found four of these in fungus growing under bark on a piece of split birch firewood. Beetle is next to millimeter rule on my Leatherman multitool.

I made a modification for my field camera (Pentax Optio GPS), a super-macro lens ring stand fashioned from the mouth of clear plastic gallon juice jug. The camera came with a black plastic lens ring stand that, aside from blocking out ambient light, was simply too low for shooting anything that's not very flat, such as paper or a printed circuit. The lens ring itself contains five embedded LEDs but they are too weak for the high shutter speeds I need for shooting live insects.

My aim was to allow both ambient and artificial light to enter through this ring. I directed beams from two headlamps through the ring onto the subject for my later shots. I plan to position several very bright Cree LED chips around this ring, powered by a separate battery pack, so I can boost the automatic shutter speed and get good detail on tiny moving beetles in the field. I'll post images of my creation when completed.

I chose the Pentax Optio GPS point-&-shoot as my field camera in order to record GPS coordinates for specimens I collect in Ecuador for a museum there. I was pleasantly surprised to find that, although the manual said nothing about it, the camera also records elevation. I have yet to devise a way to import this data to include on a specimen label. (I bought a small laser printer and some card stock for gang-printing labels. It will mean a lot of tedious work with my paper cutter though.)

Following a collecting session I will take detailed studio shots of specimens, both live and dead, with a full-size SLR and macro lenses, extension tubes, flash set-up, etc. These will be the shots I post online for ID purposes, asking specialists to have a look. I plan to take photo-montage stacks of dead specimens that are of particular interest, some through a 10x microscope objective. I plan to buy the SLR in the next week or so.

The most exciting aspect of my "retirement" project will be bringing many undiscovered species to the light of science.