A Fly, a Grasshopper & an Ant get spied on by a macro lens...

Picked up my first macro lens a couple of weeks ago and enjoying this new challenge. Never have I cursed at the wind more than the past couple of weeks.

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The ant one is quite interesting,what are they doing?
I see you have the Canon 60mm? Why did you chose f10? I did some experiments on mine the other day with dead insects and I think f13 is sharper (I will do some more)

davholla wrote in post #18644403
The ant one is quite interesting,what are they doing?
I see you have the Canon 60mm? Why did you chose f10? I did some experiments on mine the other day with dead insects and I think f13 is sharper (I will do some more)

Not sure, was a lot of ants looked like they were attacking but they didn't seem to be causing any harm so *shrugs*.

Honestly fstop I'm still experimenting, I will need to do some sharpness tests to decide how high I can go before there's a drop off in quality but I felt so far that f5.6 to f8 was sharpest and it drops off from there.

The title reads like the beginning of some wierd “three insects walked into a bar” joke

Nice shots

Looks like you're off to a good start with it. Cursing at the wind is part of macro photography. When you start bumping the magnification up, it gets geometrically worse. Even when the wind isn't blowing, the things you're trying to compose still wiggle and move. Ugggh. It is most certainly challenging.

Ospi wrote in post #18644420
Not sure, was a lot of ants looked like they were attacking but they didn't seem to be causing any harm so *shrugs*.

Honestly fstop I'm still experimenting, I will need to do some sharpness tests to decide how high I can go before there's a drop off in quality but I felt so far that f5.6 to f8 was sharpest and it drops off from there.

It is not just sharpness but depth of field that is important.

By the way, the grasshopper might be a cricket

davholla wrote in post #18644661
It is not just sharpness but depth of field that is important.

Very true, but I've noticed the dropoff is so severe that it looks like I completely missed focus, so I'm weary for now. But will keep practicing at it.

Thanks for the replies all!

Excellent start to your macro photography.
I suspect the ants will be milking the plant hopper nymphs for honeydew.
Brian v.

LordV wrote in post #18645021
Excellent start to your macro photography.
I suspect the ants will be milking the plant hopper nymphs for honeydew.
Brian v.

Oh wow that is very interesting, I didn't feel like it was something aggressive because the nymphs were not in a panic and seemed more anxious about me than the ants. Cool info.

be surprised if that were true, more in focus of course but unlikely sharper. The point of stacking for macro is to allow the use of the wider apertures for better sharpness without loss of depth of focus.

racketman wrote in post #18645074
be surprised if that were true, more in focus of course but unlikely sharper. The point of stacking for macro is to allow the use of the wider apertures for better sharpness without loss of depth of focus.

Sorry I should have said more in focus without any noticeable loss of sharpness to my eye. If anyone is really interested I will post the photos (not very interesting just 2 dead bumble bees, no processing that would spoil the point of the test).