Ants

GardenersHelper

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Nick
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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 third 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. Images 2, 7 and 8 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

1911 087 2021_06_05 DSC05579_PLab4-Edit LR 1300h DNAI DNAIc
by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#3

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

#4

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

#5

1911 079 2021_06_05 DSC05545_PLab4 LR 1300h DNAI DNAIc
by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#6

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

#7

1911 090 2021_06_05 DSC05590_PLab4-Edit LR 1300h DNAI DNAIc
by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#8

1911 092 2021_06_05 DSC05594_PLab4-Edit LR 1300h DNAI DNAIc
by gardenersassistant, on Flickr
 
Amazing detail as always Nick (y)
 
Is it ok to proclaim how jealous I am of these shots? #6 is unbelievably good.
 
Aren’t they just lovely ;)
 
Amazing detail as always Nick (y)
Is it ok to proclaim how jealous I am of these shots? #6 is unbelievably good.
Very good - ants can be very tricky.
Aren’t they just lovely ;)
Just brilliant great detail
These are excellent - #7 has a feeling of "wonder"...

Paul.
Nice work I love #6

Thanks everyone for the encouraging comments.

I feel I got very lucky with #6 (These ant shots have a very high failure rate, with very few sufficiently in focus for me to want to use them.) I think #6 is my favourite of any of the ant shots I have ever captured.
 
Fabulous set Nick-

Thanks Les.

Ive just thrown my macro lens in the bin :LOL: :LOL: :LOL: :LOL: :LOL:

Nah. Just take lots and lots of photos (in my case typically 300 to 600 in a 90 minute or so session). Trawl through them to find any that worked (with practice and a suitably ruthless frame of mind this can be quite quick to do). Throw out the rest and enjoy the ones where you had some luck. That's what I do anyway. :)

Some people call this "spray and pray", generally meant as an insult I think, but it gives the general idea of what I do so I'm ok with it. For me it's the results that count.
 
Actually I think your spray and pray is far superior to my one and done. I get one chance to nail it and when I get the shot it is out of focus. You are right that you need to trawl through shots but 1/30 spray is a better return than my 0/1.

I have just changed my mode to 20fps, I’m adamant to get a few good ones today!
 
Actually I think your spray and pray is far superior to my one and done. I get one chance to nail it and when I get the shot it is out of focus. You are right that you need to trawl through shots but 1/30 spray is a better return than my 0/1.

I have just changed my mode to 20fps, I’m adamant to get a few good ones today!

Hope it works for you.

For the avoidance of doubt, I don't use bursts. That doesn't work with flash, not my flash anyway, and not with the power level I'm using it at (1/4 power, takes around a second to recharge after a shot). So the fastest rate I shoot at is one every one to two seconds.
 
Hope it works for you.

For the avoidance of doubt, I don't use bursts. That doesn't work with flash, not my flash anyway, and not with the power level I'm using it at (1/4 power, takes around a second to recharge after a shot). So the fastest rate I shoot at is one every one to two seconds.
Ah that makes sense, I’m not using flash and had good sunlight today which slightly helped. 20 fps and AF-C provided seemingly better returns at a glance but now I have hundreds to wade through, will definitely shoot at 8 fps in the future.

It was a good proof of concept though I remain hampered by the lack of a macro lens. In any case I want to thank you for the inspiration, I spent an inordinate amount of time shooting ants today!
 
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