I'm still trying to catch up from being disconnected from the web for a few days -amazing how easy it is to fall behind!

I put some sugar water on a tree to slow down the carpenter ants and a fly crashed the pick nick. Images range from 2x to 5x.

Nothing short of amazing.

All excellent but the first shot is an absolute winner in my eyes...

Hey John, a question: how do you mix the sugar water? How much sugar to how much water? I guess you can spray it or sprinkle it, huh? I've put honey drops on a milk bottle cap and that works well, but I've heard you and Brian talk about sugar water and wanted to try it. Thanks. ps Excellent shots!

Kenny

Wonderful series- love the last two ant shots - these look to be the same ants as Remus shoots
Brian V.

Thanks folks

@ Kenny: I usually use about 2/3 water to 1/3 sugar or a mix of half honey and half water (honey seems to work better, but I didn't have any).

Great series again. The oranges look a bit overstaurated in all but #3, but I know you rarely mess with individual color sat... ??

MichAg92 wrote:
Great series again. The oranges look a bit overstaurated in all but #3, but I know you rarely mess with individual color sat... ??

Thanks Amy

In post I changed the white balance to "shade" in some of the shots otherwise there's almost no color -tree bark and black ants does not a color photo make

Those would take a BIG can of RAID for sure!

- Joe

Awesome photos! I am new to the macro world and I was wondering if you would share some information about those photos with me.

What settings did you have on your camera for those photos? What magnification level are those photos at? Did you use a focusing rail? If so, what is the one you use?

Thanks!

Matt

Thanks, John, for the 'recipe'. Will try it out pronto.

ps Just read your tutorials over on deviantart. I find myself doing the things with respect to stalking you suggest in the bee and dragon tutorials without thinking about it. Have also been getting more comfortable with my monopod brace under the bushhawk.

jamach wrote:
Those would take a BIG can of RAID for sure!

- Joe

! I've been trying to get my mother in law away from using pesticides out at the farm (not good for the insects or the kids) and this is the first year that she's trying more natural forms of pest control.

flytrapcare wrote:
What settings did you have on your camera for those photos?


Manual mode F11, 1/250, and ISO 100. For most of my macro work I'm either shooting at those settings or they are my starting point.

flytrapcare wrote:
What magnification level are those photos at?


The fly is at 3x, the ants are at 2, 3, and 5x -or close to it. I've been using magnification as a compositional tool so a lot of the time I don't know what the mag is (unless I happen to look at the lens after the critter takes off and make a mental note of where I had the lens).

flytrapcare wrote:
Did you use a focusing rail? If so, what is the one you use?


No rail, no tripod -it's too slow for the critters I shoot. Everything is hand held. I just look for ways to brace the rig and I get the flash as close to the critter as possible so I can take advantage of an extremely short flash duration to freeze the motion. My style of macro is very similar to stop motion photography.

flytrapcare wrote:
Thanks!

Matt



Anytime

Kenj8246 wrote:
Thanks, John, for the 'recipe'. Will try it out pronto.

ps Just read your tutorials over on deviantart. I find myself doing the things with respect to stalking you suggest in the bee and dragon tutorials without thinking about it. Have also been getting more comfortable with my monopod brace under the bushhawk.

Anytime

Please let me know how the BushHawk works out for you -curious to know if they are using a higher quality trigger switch in the stock.

Dalantech wrote:
No rail, no tripod -it's too slow for the critters I shoot. Everything is hand held. I just look for ways to brace the rig and I get the flash as close to the critter as possible so I can take advantage of an extremely short flash duration to freeze the motion. My style of macro is very similar to stop motion photography.

Holy cow! That's super impressive. Thanks for all the information!

flytrapcare wrote:
Dalantech wrote:
No rail, no tripod -it's too slow for the critters I shoot. Everything is hand held. I just look for ways to brace the rig and I get the flash as close to the critter as possible so I can take advantage of an extremely short flash duration to freeze the motion. My style of macro is very similar to stop motion photography.

Holy cow! That's super impressive. Thanks for all the information!

No problem Matt. Several folks around here shoot hand held or with some sort of simple brace. It depends on the subjects that you go after and the time of day you find them. Shoot in the early morning all the time and you'll find all kinds of critters that are too wet and / or too cold to move so you can get close with all kinds of gear. Shoot in the heat of the day like I do and most camera supports are just too slow...

Dalantech wrote:
No problem Matt. Several folks around here shoot hand held or with some sort of simple brace. It depends on the subjects that you go after and the time of day you find them. Shoot in the early morning all the time and you'll find all kinds of critters that are too wet and / or too cold to move so you can get close with all kinds of gear. Shoot in the heat of the day like I do and most camera supports are just too slow...
Thanks for the shooting tips John. It's good to know that great macro photos can be taken with a simple brace or handheld.

I thought of one more quick question:
Which flash are you using for these photos?

Super series John! glad you came back with this excellemt series.The ants are fantastic wich are my favourite.
Regards,

Remus

They're all nice but I love that last one; looks like saliva dripping from its jaws; if that guy were six feet long, we'd be in real trouble. Also thanks for the tutorial comments.

flytrapcare wrote:
I thought of one more quick question:
Which flash are you using for these photos?

The MT-24EX diffused with a pair of Gary Fong puffer diffusers that I hot glued to the flash heads -necessity is a mother...