Ants (Flash photos)

[Stephen]

This is my second trial to take ants photos. This time I used external flash instead of natural light.
Please feel free to comment.

My gear
Canon EOS-R7
EF 100mm f/2.8 macro IS
CRaw, Av
Godox TT350 GN36, with diffuser, M mode, 1/4 power output

Post processed
Canon Digital Photo Professional
Topaz Denoise AI

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[Tim Mayo]

Brilliant photos Stephen! Love the second one but I can't figure out what it's carrying?

 

[Archibald]

This is my second trial to take ants photos. This time I used external flash instead of natural light.
Please feel free to comment.

My gear
Canon EOS-R7
EF 100mm f/2.8 macro IS
CRaw, Av
Godox TT350 GN36, with diffuser, M mode, 1/4 power output

Post processed
Canon Digital Photo Professional
Topaz Denoise AI


View attachment 20855


View attachment 20856

Well done. Ants are had to photograph, they move so fast. Was the flash diffused?

 

[Stephen]

Brilliant photos Stephen! Love the second one but I can't figure out what it's carrying?

Thanks, I think it is a dried fruit peel of a plant.

 

[Stephen]

Well done. Ants are had to photograph, they move so fast. Was the flash diffused?

Thanks. I am using a clip on diffuser provided by Godox and a cheap diffuser similar to Dorr diffuser.
I found that it would waste a lot of flash light. I think Cygnustech diffuser would be much better.
Some famous macro shooters / photography youtuber, e.g. Michael Widell, Stewart Wood and Jamie Spensley, are using Cgnustech diffuser.

It is not very difficult to photograph ants.
1. A reliable and fast autofocus camera e.g EOS-R7, EOS-R6 II....
2. A camera with high MP (for cropping), e.g. EOS-R7
3. A macro lens with USM drive e.g EF 100mm f/2.8 macro IS
4. try to find ants that are moving slower e.g. carrying things, meet together.
5. set the lens magnification to about 1:1 to 1:1.2 (near closest focus distance)
6. set manual focus, manual pre-focus the target distance using Focus Guide (new manual focus method for EOS-R system)
7. set the lens focus range to 0.3-0.5M, switch to autofocus mode
8. set the camera to small focus area and focus, it would focus accurately with a green small square box
9. the autofocus still works well as long as the target distance varies not too much.

 

[Archibald]

Cool. Thanks for the tips!

 

[David Stallard]

Not had a lot of success with these little guys - after seeing these. . . . must try harder!

Pretty cool

.DAVID.

 

[Stephen]

This is my second trial to take ants photos. This time I used external flash instead of natural light.
Please feel free to comment.

My gear
Canon EOS-R7
EF 100mm f/2.8 macro IS
CRaw, Av
Godox TT350 GN36, with diffuser, M mode, 1/4 power output

Post processed
Canon Digital Photo Professional
Topaz Denoise AI


View attachment 20855


View attachment 20856

Another sets ( forgot to use the Dorr like diffuser)

for #1 and #2 EF 100mm f/2.8 macro IS (at ~0.9 magnification)

1.

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2.

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Raynox DCR-250 + EF 100mm f/2.8 macro IS
Handheld with external flash
Magnification ~1.8
image covers 70% across the frame
heavily sharpened with Topaz Denoise AI

3.

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[Kerro]

Stephen, they look pretty good to my old eyes. Lots of detail.

 

[Stephen]

Stephen, they look pretty good to my old eyes. Lots of detail.

Kerro, for #1 and #2, they are at ~0.9 magnification, they are OK. But for #3, EF 100mm with DCR-250, it looks blur at 100%, I need to sharpen more in the post processing step.

According to the youtubers, the DCR-250 should perform very well and didn't affect the quality very much.
I had tried many times and replace the clip on plastic mount with a metal mount, but I still got unsatifactory results even for the static objects.
I think the DCR-250 is not suitable for pixel peeper.

Stephen

 

[Kerro]

Stephen, I don't know about the DCR-250 but maybe altering the DOF so more is in focus may help. I have the EF 100/2.8 macro and the MPE-65 and most of mine come out pretty sharp, to me at least. All my images now go through DxO Pure Raw 2 before anything else, so I don't know if that helps a little.