I have a new camera. I finally bought a Canon 40D. The 20D was a very good camera but the 40D was not too expensive and Charlie article about the silent shoot mode was the last push to buy it. I also tried a new lighting method. I used a Led torch with ping-pong ball diffusion. Here is the result. C...

Very interesting texture. Just another unusual detail from mother nature.
I think the Led light can be very cold in temperature. But it worth a try.

I found a key to ants species in Britain from 1958:
http://antbase.org/ants/publications/11308/11308.pdf

Sorry, I just remembered your first ant stack. The second 'bitey' one is completely different. This one can be one of the brown colored Serviformica like Formica fusca. Some of them are slightly bi colored like rufibarbis you can exclude them from the possibilities. I think there is more brown one b...

It is interesting. Is your portrait shot is from the same species? Because this ant seems to me as a Formica (Serviformica) but the portrait seemed as a Lasius. I'm not certain of course. You can try to identify the subfamily here: http://www.acad.carleton.edu/curricular/BIOL/resources/ant/index.htm...

They are very interesting this close by. We have also something similar to this one. Good work.

Betty, thanks for the grammar I edited it. My wife also keeps worrying about ticks. She has all the reason, because if I go out photographing it includes very much laying around on the ground. So I just got the third vaccination against encephalitis last week. I also checking myself after the field ...

Very good picture. I know the other kind has that two "highly mobile palps". I wondered how this kind works. It seemed like the whole mouth part are from just one piece (at least the surrounding "palps"). I did not try to pry them open.

I just read your post now, because we write our post about in the same time. My tick could be bigger indeed. And a little more detail visible on the tip of the "drill" on your picture. And I meant the third picture of my post, It has a little more detail than the second. I just fished out another pi...

I'm not all that content with this picture. The lighting could be better. The rose leaf background was not the best choice. But I uploaded it to compare the different tick species mouth part with each other. As Rik and Charlie discussed this topic under this post. Interesting to note, that the stoma...

I read back the argument there. According to Charlie calculation the resolution limit is 0.84 micron vs 1.12 micron. I am very interested to see it side by side on the same magnification. With this two different picture it cant be judged much.

Nice details. It is very similar magnification than my tick head. Here the second picture. I canot not tell you if it has more detail, but you can always add more magnification with extra distance. I wonder how can it perform with the extra magnification.

It seems to me that the ordinary scales are there everywhere at the background. The iridescent scales are just a second layer. Very interesting picture.

I think some of the translucency came from that the software cannot decide between the details of the antenna and the details of the body behind the antenna. So it shows you both of the details in one place. If you want to get rid of the background details, you can create a shorter stack just from t...

Good news. I did not consider lighting other than flash so far. I must think about it now.
Wonderful pictures, as usual.
What makes the third pictures so different? I know it must be the lighting, but what exactly?