How can I take credit for interesting shots of tiny creatures? All I have to do is walk out my front door, sit down on an overturned bucket, and take a few dozen pictures. A few always turn out well. Ants have caught my attention in a big way for the past few days. I've discovered that there are at least five species in our front yard and driveway alone, something I never would have guessed had I not begun to photograph them. False Honey Ants and Acrobat Ants are the two species that graze on the sweet setae (hairs) that grow from the buds, leaves, and stems of the Bachelor's Button plants in our front garden. The individuals in this photo are False Honey Ants, engaging in a brief moment of contact to ensure they are indeed from the same colony. I have a Nikon D50 camera with a Micro Nikkor 60mm lens. This gives me 1:1 capability. Yesterday, I added in a clip-on Raynox M250 closeup lens, which finally gave me eye detail. The combination of equipment and settings is reasonably simple and leads to good results if one keeps at it. The other factor is an interest in finding good subjects and taking the time to get to know them and take lots and lots of photos of them. This shot was taken with onboard flash diffused through the plastic of a vinegar bottle after 5:00 PM. To compensate for the reduced light I bumped the ISO to 400. I've found that increasing ISO helps with exposure but does lead to slightly increased graininess particularly noticeable on out-of-focus areas.
Friday, May 18, 2007
False Honey Ant clearing food from its jaws
Cant' stop photographing these little wonders. Good for both my photographic technique and my soul. Apparently, False Honey Ants eschew weather that's too warm, preferring to come out when it's cooler and lay low when it gets too hot. They have taken over the Bachelor's Buttons in our yard. I still see some Acrobat Ants browsing on the flowers, but seemingly fewer and fewer. False Honey Ants are slightly larger than Acrobat Ants and thus a bit easier to capture photographically. They are also more apt to move about, making it tricky to get shots of them, but more likely that they will be interesting shots like this one. Acrobat Ants tend to spend their time with their heads down, not just down low, but pointing downward to the ground. Much more difficult for a giant like me to photograph.
