Unbelievable Photos Show The Microscopic Beauty Of Butterfly Wings

You might think that at first glance you’re looking at fish scales, but you’re actually looking at the wings of butterflies! American photographer Chris Perani shows the stunning beauty of butterflies by capturing the microscopic details of their wings.

Perani turns to extreme macro photography to snap images of iridescent hairs and scales. He uses a 10x microscope objective attached to a 200mm lens, which creates an almost non-existent depth of field.

“Using a focus rail, the lens must be moved no more than three microns per photo to achieve focus across the thickness of the subject which can be up to eight millimetres. This yields 350 exposures, each with a sliver in focus, which must be composited together.”

More: Chris Perani, Instagram h/t: lostateminor