Amazon Ant -new picture added

[acerola]

I need some time to read the recent posts, there is so much activity here.

I just finished processing this stack. I used my old setup 100mm macro lens with reversed lens. This is an amazon ant (Polyergus rufescens).
A a slaver ant. It raids other ants nests typically servifomica species and steals their pupas. The freshly hatched serviformica ants then work in the amazon ant nest as in their own. As you can see the amazon ant mandible is specialized in killing other ants and carrying their pupas, all other work remain to the slaves.

I used special minute pins in mounting and aligning the ant. Thank you Betty for the idea.

Canon EOS 40D, aligned with CZP, stacked with TuFuse from 72 picture

[Aynia]

That's a lovely portrait. I quite like the way the head is in total focus and you can see the rest of him in the background.

Only thing I'm not sure of is the background colour!! Don't get me wrong, I love blue/turquoise but for some reason I don't think it suits the ant! Of course that is only a subjective opinion!

[P_T]

It's a great quality stack there but for some reason, the outline of the body mixed with the blue colour makes the whole image look like a caricature drawing.

[acerola]

Aynia: Maybe a little darker would be better. I do not like the original background color, it has more cyan in it. I like this better, as I removed some of the cyan. If I watch a picture for a long time, I can not judge so well. Thanks.

P_T: Well, there is something in it.

[acerola]

I just fiddled more with the background (less cyan and saturation) I tried to achieve a more natural look. Here is the result.


What do you think?

[lauriek]

I prefer the last shot with the muted background - it's just a bit saturated in the first - a bit unnatural looking... Nice work as usual!

[Aynia]

Of the two, the second one is definitely more natural looking.

What I was really getting at, is it natural for an ant to be against something blue... perhaps the sky...? I don't have an answer really.

But just to remind you, I do like this portrait!

[lauriek]

Well, if it were absolutely gigantic, like towering above us....

[nto]

I like most first version, remains the most eye glued the top image, gigantic or not gigantic and good work image

[acerola]

The first one is good on my home CRT monitor, the second one is good on my workplace LCD monitor.

[acerola]

Here is another picture. It is a portrait. Taken with Nikon 10x objective.
It has a lightly less saturated colors. I just realized, that my camera was in portrait picture style with the first picture, and it affects colors. This one is maybe more natural.

[lauriek]

Oh yes, I think that's better! Keep all those in camera settings off or minimum!!

Edited to add:
Did you change the diffusion or lighting in this new image? as it looks better in that respect as well, or maybe the picture settings in the first one caused the hot spot on the top right of the head

[P_T]

Yes, I like the last one the best. I can focus on all the excellent details instead of being distracted by the background.

[Planapo]

Wow, further great shots, Péter!

And again another famous ant species.
I´m on the look-out for P. rufescens for quite some time now, but haven´t managed to find them yet. They are rare up here but I have a record from the literature that names a location near my place where they were seen on raids in the 1950ies and I´ve visited this place a couple of times, but without success so far, maybe they are extinct there nowadays .

I guess they can be encountered more frequently down there at your place. Have you already seen ´em on a raid?

--Betty

[dmillard]

This portrait is superb, Péter!

David