Dust Mites and Their Relation to Photography

Dust Mites

Dust Mites and Their Relation to Photography

Part of Toomas Tamm's photo pages

Adam Lane, a software engineer and amateur photographer, had a rare chance to observe a dust mite eating a small piece of dust inside the lens he uses on his camera. The story (available through this link), was posted on the Canon EOS mailing list in March of 1996.

Adam followed up by taking a picture of another creature of the same species in late April 1996 (the original hero was probably killed).

Picture of a Dust Mite
The photo is © Copyright Adam Lane, 1996. This Dust Mite not to be used for personal gain.

When asked about the size of the beast, he wrote:

The actual size is a bit smaller than most "period" punctuation marks. About the size of a single pixel. A smallish grain of sand. Very hard to locate under the viewfinder; very hard to focus. I'm surprised I got any detail.
The lens was about 10x! a 4x6 print increases this to 60x! The cropped image displayed on a monitor makes it close to 100x! Only a guesstimate.

The following photographic equipment was used:
Canon 1n
ML-3 and 540EZ flash units
100mm f/2.8 Macro lens set at 1:1 with the following attachments in order from lens to camera body...
25mm extension tube
Canon 2x TC
12mm extension tube
Canon 1.4x TC
Cambron 2x TC

Royal Gold 100 film
1/250 sec
f/8

Reduced to black & white to save disk space...there's really very little color to see.

A comment sent by Michael a. Deutsch:

As a professional entomologist, I can tell you that the dust mite is not an insect. It is an arthropod but is not in the class Insecta. It is in the class Arachnida...spiders, ticks, mites and other creatures that have 8 or more legs as adults. Adult insects, if they have legs, will have only 3 pair or 6 legs.
Dust mites have been associated with human allergies and along with the cockroach,are being studied as possible causes or triggers for asthma attacks, especially in young children.

A comment sent by Thorkil E Hallas:

The mite designated as a house dust mite is not such a species. It's an house-mite, by name Glycyphagus domesticus. You can read about it and see its picture in Hallas T, Mourier H, Jansson L: Elintarviketuholaiset (1987) p.79,81. They are not uncommon in photograpjic equipment stored in humid houses.
[Ed. note: that book is in the Finnish language.]