London-based Sports and Portrait Photographer Levon Biss wanted to see how he could take his commercial lighting techniques into the world of macro photography. After attaching a microscope assembly to the end of his DSLR lens and getting some samples from the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, Biss was able to achieve extremely detailed, high resolution three-meter prints of 10 mm insects.

The resulting Mircrosculpture exhibit of large pictures will be showing at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History from May 27 until the end of October and could inspire a whole new generation of entomologists. Biss spends between two to three weeks on each subject. Due to the inherently shallow depth of field that comes with using a microscope, each subject is divided into 30 different visual sections. After he snaps a shot, he then has to adjust the focus for the next frame, which is done in increments of 10 microns. To give you an idea of how minute those adjustments are, a human hair is 75 microns on average. When all is said and done, there are anywhere between 8,000 to 10,000 frames that need to be patiently stitched together to form a single image. With every single aspect of his subjects individually focused on and shot, Biss creates an image that is amazingly detailed, allowing entomologists to view some of these insects in a way never seen before.

[via Mental Floss]