Ants

[gardenersassistant]

These were captured hand-held several days ago using a Sony A7sii with a Laowa 100mm 2X macro lens and a Yongnuo YN24EX twin flash. The second one used two 2X teleconverters and the rest (in a different session the day before) used one 2X teleconverter and one 1.4X teleconverter.

These are single-image captures (i.e. not stacked). The raw files were processed using presets in DXO PhotoLab, Adobe Lightroom and Topaz DeNoise AI, with image-specific adjustments in Lightroom. The last Image had a round trip from Lightroom to Photoshop and back to deal with some cloning that was too difficult to do in Lightroom.

#1

1911 077 2021_06_05 DSC05534_PLab4 LR 1300h DNAI DNAIc by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#2

1910 003 2021_06_06 DSC05944_PLab4 LR 1300h DNAI DNAIc by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#3

1911 078 2021_06_05 DSC05537_PLab4 LR 1300h DNAI DNAIc by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#4

1911 080 2021_06_05 DSC05547_PLab4 LR 1300h DNAI DNAIc by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#5

1911 092 2021_06_05 DSC05594_PLab4-Edit LR 1300h DNAI DNAIc by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

 

[Tom Narwid]

Beautiful set.

 

[AlanLichty]

Jaw dropping level of detail. Fantastic work.

 

[Ben Egbert]

Amazing detail.

 

[JimFox]

Hey Nick, so interesting! My favorites are the ones where the ants heads are lifted up and their antennas are pointing up.

 

[gardenersassistant]

Beautiful set.

Jaw dropping level of detail. Fantastic work.

Amazing detail.

Hey Nick, so interesting! My favorites are the ones where the ants heads are lifted up and their antennas are pointing up.

Thanks Tom, Alan, Ben, Jim for the encouraging comments.

Jim, those are my favourites too. It's something I've not seen before. The only suggestion I found for why they do it is that when they feel threatened or are attacked they do it to make themselves look larger. I have no idea if that is true or not.

 

[Amy Earl]

These are so cool. The flesh of the ant looks like orange gelatin - is that the flash giving that effect because it reflects off the ridges of the skin and makes it look shiny? Maybe it's just that the flash brings out all the different textures on the body that we don't normally see...in any case, these are fascinating. Love the one with the aphid.

 

[gardenersassistant]

These are so cool.

Thanks Amy.

The flesh of the ant looks like orange gelatin - is that the flash giving that effect because it reflects off the ridges of the skin and makes it look shiny? Maybe it's just that the flash brings out all the different textures on the body that we don't normally see...in any case, these are fascinating.

I'm not sure how much it is the natural shininess of the ant's skin and how much it is the effect of the flash. I find flash very problematic with shiny subjects. With these ants It shows up most in the very rounded, smooth and reflective rear end of the ant. That was the reason I looped out to Photoshop for the last one, to damp down the reflection of the flash on its rear end.

These flash reflections are an ongoing source of dissatisfaction and just yesterday I made yet another adjustment to my diffusion to try to improve the situation with reflective subjects. I'm currently testing it. I don't know if it will make much difference. Most of what I've tried over the years hasn't, or there have been unacceptable side-effects. I find close-up/macro very much a matter of trying to balance a whole lot of competing factors, some positive and some negative. Perhaps it is one of the more challenging areas of photography - I don't know, I don't do much else, and I suppose every sort of photography has its own challenges.

Love the one with the aphid.

That was another piece of good fortune, happening to have both in the frame and getting both in focus. Both of them were rushing around. (These all look as if the ant is still, but they rush around a lot and you have to try to grab shots along the way). With that last one It happened so fast I didn't have time to think or take care to get things right, and the failure rate with these ant shots is high even with just an ant by itself. With two subjects that are moving independently you need a double dose of luck. But if you capture as many images as I do (typically 300 to 600 in a session) you can get lucky sometimes.

I think the little thing is a mite btw. (But I'm pretty useless at identifying things, so I could well be wrong about that.)

 

[Trent Watts]

These are absolutely stunning images. I really enjoyed spending some time with them.

 

[Jameel Hyder]

Very detailed images. Nice macro work.

 

[gardenersassistant]

These are absolutely stunning images. I really enjoyed spending some time with them.

Very detailed images. Nice macro work.

Thank you both for your positive comments.