Head Of the Ants

Hi guys :)

 

As some of you may know, I have been painstakingly trying to get a high quality image of an ants head for some time now.

I recently posted a photo of my best attempt, something I really wasn't happy with in the slightest at all due to quite a number problems.

 

Over the past week I have tried many different methods, equipment, ants and poses.

All seemed to fail for around 7 attempts.

I sat down again last night and decided to give it one last go. So I'm glad I did !

 

For some reason the 10x objective was producing pretty poor quality images. I decided it might be the objective itself so I did try my 28mm lens reversed, but even that produced a pretty awful image. I swapped the 28mm for bellows, extension tubes and a 4x next. This produced the clearest image and is the above outcome of around 72 images stacked :-)

 

I am also very happy to say there is more detail in the larger image here - www.flickr.com/photos/sequentialmacro/7750297028/sizes/k/...

 

I think the reason I struggled with this subject for so long is setting up the pose, getting the light to cover the head but not to over expose, and most importantly move in s sufficient amount of steps without over doing it too much.

 

This is the last ant stack i'll be doing for a long time since there was too much sweating, thinking and bad language trying to get this image :D Bring on the larger insects !!

One more ant photo to come though as i did 2 poses :)

 

Enjoy the weather !!

 

Also, for those interested - a video I made for someone of my setup and how to do focus stacking cheaply - www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5NiyTU7a_0

 

OH ! I would like to thank Wingsandthings here on flickr as well as Iain, Insect-o-Saurus, both of which helped me with great advice, so happy to have great friends here on flickr always ready to help me when I get stuck !

Done