Photomicrographer James E. Hayden, RBP has been a consistent winner of the Small World competition for many years. Featured below is a photomicrograph of a zebrafish specimen taken with darkfield illumination.

Danio rerio (Zebrafish) Head Original Magnification: 4.5x Specimen: Hematoxylin and Eosin Section Technique: Darkfield Illumination

As with the low magnification image of a tapeworm this cross section through the head of a zebrafish was easily seen with a cursory glance at the histology section. The specimen was so large, in fact, that the challenge here was to be able to apply darkfield techniques using the standard turret condenser with a 1X objective. Ordinarily, such a combination would not be possible, due to the extreme low magnification creating vignetting in all corners of the image. In this case, by de-focusing the condenser somewhat, the darkfield light was able to spread a little more evenly over the center area and, because the subject is basically circular, all the vignetting fell in the black area anyway. This photomicrograph won 20th place in the 1999 Small World competition.