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 It
is highly recommended to start off with a digital or digital
SLR camera with 3 or higher mega-pixel resolution and macro
capabilities. Digital cameras are great for many reasons such
as: desktop editing, quick and easy storage, ability to transmit
electronically and, easy printing. It is also important to have
a large sized memory stick/media for your camera. This will
give you the freedom to take extra shots of your subject allowing
room for marginal errors: i.e. blurring and bad lighting. Setting
up your camera to capture the highest quality or largest file
size possible increases sharpness and makes selecting shots
later on much easier.
 Some
photographers prefer to use a tripod but, personally I like
to float around the subject to capture different angles of light.
The “floating” technique is especially great for
the trichroics and the color shifting capabilities. Taking multiples
of every desired shot, as mentioned before, is key in getting
“that perfect picture”: i.e. with flash, without
flash, different lighting situations and doubles of each frame.
Keep in mind, a neutral background is a nice touch for professional
looking photos.
 The
majority of the time I use halogen lights but, a camera flash
and most importantly natural sunlight are also great sources
of light to help capture dichroic in its truest form. Diffusing
halogen lighting is very important because it emits such high
levels of light from a relatively small source resulting in
unwanted reflections, blotchiness, and washed out looking photos.
 After
taking all the desired shots of your subject, editing them with
a program such as Photoshop 7.0 will help to finalize your photos.
Adding text, adjusting color balance and saturation, resizing,
cropping and, even morphing are all possibilities at your fingertips
with a photo editing program. The photo editing program is almost
as valuable as taking a photo itself.
New!!!
A newer technique developed by Craig Saxton utilizes a program
like this. Starting with your camera on a tripod and your object
“fixed”, snap 3 or more pictures with the first
having the light source from the left, the next from the center,
and the last from the right. Now you have 3 pictures (or more)
with the only difference being the lighting. A clone tool can
be used to “clone” in the color from the other photos
where your main photo needs it the most, thus showing all the
colors the camera didn’t pick up in just one photo. This
can also be achieved by selecting a main photo and layering
transparencies of the other photos over the top of the main
photo. I believe this is a break through for dichroic photo
taking.
 Last but
not least, a good orange based, organic glass cleaner used on
the surface of your subject will get rid of any fingerprints
or smudges and bring out that extra sparkle. These are not rules
written in stone, just a guideline from one artist to another,
so we can all capture lifelike stills of this fantastic medium
that is so hard to capture in its essence.
-Erik Anders
  
Above pictures are all one Rasta
Red Marble at different angles. In article, top four pictures
are Grass Green Marble at different angles. Last pic is dichroic
honeycomb marble. Below pictures are Nebula.   
Photo by Craig Saxton of a Kevin
O'Grady Dichroic Galaxy Marble from his personal collection.
See more up close photos using
the described methods: Erik Anders
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