Ants In My PANTS!!

[Lumen Miner (Mitchell)]

Originally Posted by ving

i likwe that link tot he ants nest. thats really interesting...

do you have your own ants nest?
i'd love to see pics of it if you do!

Originally Posted by jjjnettie

David, meet Mitch, I think you both may have a lot in common.

Originally Posted by ving

oh har har jeanette! :p

Originally Posted by jjjnettie

Well, his ants aren't as scary as your flies.

Originally Posted by ving

they arent? they gave me nightmares!

David, the nest in the link is my current setup. I had anticipated housing the brown bull ants in it but the chambers / passages were way way too small. So I transferred them into another enclosure. Unfortunatley bull ants have a nasty tendency, when one gets distressed and dies, it emmits the caustic serim from its stinger. This inturn makes the next ant distressed and die... Long story short, my bull ants got wiped out over night. Only a small 20 member colony, still upset me alot though...

That nest now currently houses a sugar ant colony of around 250 individuals and queen. I'll try and get some pics up, when I can.



JJJ, am I missing something here?? Flies?

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Ving is the "Lord of the Flies".
His macro's are phenomenal!!

[Matt Wastell (Matt)]

Ants!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was bitten on the ankle by an ant at a BBQ recently (little black fella from Brisbane). It cause my entire lower leg to swell and caused great pain for a week! Keep them in a controlled environment as pets.......I now run from them!

[Lumen Miner (Mitchell)]

Originally Posted by jjjnettie

Ving is the "Lord of the Flies".
His macro's are phenomenal!!

Oh neat!! I must go check them out!

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

speaking of flies:

http://www.macro-images.com/images/M...ies/index.html

shameless plug

Dave

[Lumen Miner (Mitchell)]

Originally Posted by dpastern

speaking of flies:

http://www.macro-images.com/images/M...ies/index.html

shameless plug

Dave

It's shameless and so it should be...

Those shots are awesome!! I can't get over the celled eye, of some insects (or is it all?).
It is great you can catch it, as you would find in the "industy", of macro photos, not many photographers can adequately capture the cells. It is a mark of a high skills.

Well done my friend!!

Never be ashamed at posting in my threads, they are always open to any input. Only aids in the search for knowledge.



Oh!!! Thunder outside!! Gonna go captcha some lightning shots!!

Good skies!

[ving (David)]

cat wait to see your sugar ant colony. the bull ant story was facinating... one dies, they all die... tragic but so interesting!

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

Mitchell. Macro takes a LOT of practice. I'm not in the league of good guys like Brian Valentine, but I'm half decent at least. Brian's lighting is much better than mine, which is something I'm working on.

Dave

[ving (David)]

yup, its all aobut the light hey david..

what do yuo use for lighting?

[Lumen Miner (Mitchell)]

Originally Posted by ving

cat wait to see your sugar ant colony. the bull ant story was facinating... one dies, they all die... tragic but so interesting!

Interesting but really my fault, usually they would move the dead away from the colony. The enclosure was not large enough to do so. I did not know at that stage, such things could happen.

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

Originally Posted by ving

yup, its all aobut the light hey david..

what do yuo use for lighting?

You're going to laugh at this - I simply mount a 430ex on my 1D Mark IIn's hotshoe. I did have a flash arm and offshoe adaptor, but I'm simply too lazy to use it. Oh, I use a sto-fen diffuser as well. Again, it's not great, but I'm too lazy to go out and buy another one. I did make a home made diffuser, which works well, but again, I'm too lazy to use it.

I vary the FEC on my camera (most cameras don't let you do it from the body, you have to do it from the flash unit itself). I usually shoot with FEC at 1/3+, but do vary it from anywhere from -2/3 to +2/3.

Dave

[troypiggo (Troy)]

Dave/Ving - pretty nice soft light can be achieved with hot-shoe mounted flash if you use something like the Lumiquest Softbox Diffuser. I've used it with good results shooting 1:1, even up to 2:1 with extension tubes. Any higher mag than that and you're too close for the light to get down over the front of lens I think. Very cheap and good results. Pretty sure that dewdrop refraction shot of mine was with the Softbox and extension tubes 2:1.

I've since bought the MT-24EX twinlight flash. Very harsh light undiffused. I'm currently trying the little Lumiquest Ultrabounces on each head. Seems pretty good, but still experimenting.

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

Yeah I know Troy - I'm just too lazy to go out and buy it lol. Been meaning to for a long while actually. Brian's Coca Cola diffuser works very well as well. Again, I'm just a lazy sod...

Dave