Ants

Images of undisturbed subjects in their natural environment. All subject types.

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tpe
Posts: 478
Joined: Sun Aug 26, 2007 4:07 am
Location: Copenhagen Denmark

Ants

Post by tpe »

The first three are from Denmark, presumably formica rufa, the last one looks a little different and was from northern spain, so not sure if it is a common wood ant too?

The first three were with a new lens for me, a minolta 3x-1x macro zoom. The maximum focal distance is about 40mm from the end of the lens so it is very difficult to get good lighting in to the subject. It reports the actual f number taking into account the magnification which is very nice, and it seems usable up to f/57?!?!? Diffraction is much less of a problem than I thought it would be and at 3x it is not noticable on a 12MP APS sensor before about f32. So difficult to use for me still but it looks like it could produce very good results with some practice.



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Spanish variant?
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Tim

ChrisR
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Post by ChrisR »

Some nice angles there! :D
What a strange lens! Would a ring flash get light where you need it?

P_T
Posts: 461
Joined: Sat Jul 19, 2008 1:13 am
Location: Sydney, Australia

Post by P_T »

I could be wrong but I think the first three are some sort of Camponotus ant. Love the angle in the 3rd shot.

Planapo
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Joined: Tue Nov 07, 2006 2:33 am
Location: Germany, in the United States of Europe

Post by Planapo »

I could be wrong but I think the first three are some sort of Camponotus ant.
Yes, you're wrong, these first three are all genus Formica.
But with no Formica in Oz you can't be familiar with them, and hence we generously forgive you. :wink:

--Betty

P_T
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Location: Sydney, Australia

Post by P_T »

I'm here to learn. :D
Now that I looked more carefully, the segment just behind the head is smaller than Camponotus. The colour is different too. My bad. :oops:

rjlittlefield
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Re: Ants

Post by rjlittlefield »

This should be a fun lens to play with. Already you're getting good results for some small ants.

I do have some question about the numbers you're reporting.
tpe wrote:It reports the actual f number taking into account the magnification which is very nice, and it seems usable up to f/57?!?!? Diffraction is much less of a problem than I thought it would be and at 3x it is not noticable on a 12MP APS sensor before about f32. So difficult to use for me still but it looks like it could produce very good results with some practice.
These results are surprising enough that I wonder what criteria you're using.

When you say "not noticable", are you viewing at the level of actual pixels coming from the camera, or as reduced to 800 pixels wide for a web posting?

For reference, take a look at the cambridgeincolour diffraction calculator HERE (at "VISUAL EXAMPLE: APERTURE VS. PIXEL SIZE"). The Nikon D2X has almost exactly the same pixel size as your camera. At f/32, light from a single point on the subject is spread across a blob roughly 5 pixels wide. This will look distinctly fuzzy at actual pixels from the camera, but pretty good when downsized by 5X to fit in an 800 pixel web posting.

If your results are much different from this prediction, then I'd sure be interested to see some actual-pixel crops.

--Rik

P_T
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Location: Sydney, Australia

Post by P_T »

Perhaps it reports the "Effective Aperture"?

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

P_T wrote:Perhaps it reports the "Effective Aperture"?
I believe that's exactly what tpe meant when he wrote "the actual f number taking into account the magnification".

If it were reporting the nominal f-number, when then had to be further increased to account for extension, my concerns would be even more.

--Rik

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

Tim & Chris: I split our technical posts off into a separate topic over in Macro and Micro Technique and Technical Discussions. See HERE.

--Rik

waltknapp
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Joined: Thu Dec 20, 2007 11:34 pm
Location: Monroe, GA

Post by waltknapp »

ChrisR wrote:Some nice angles there! :D
What a strange lens! Would a ring flash get light where you need it?
The 1x-3x is equipped with mounting grooves for the Minolta 1200 Macro Ringflash. And yes it lights quite well with that setup.

There is also a slide copying stage that matches up with the lens. It, too, has mounting for the ringflash which gives you backlighting of what you put on the stage. One of these days I should try that with microscope slides and such.

I'm not terrably fond of the lens as a field lens, bulky and slow to use. But it is a very good lens.

Walt

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