Thanks for all the helpful comments. Also, thanks to my wife who spotted this colony of ants and dragged me to see the one carrying a feather and then insisted I photograph it!
The ant was in fact climbing up an ancient sandstone wall with this feather in its mandibles: I rotated the image by 90 degrees because it was too weird that the ant could move so effectively up a vertical surface. The location was the Roman ruins at Gortyna in Crete (an interesting place in its own right).
I took the photo using my 70-200 and a 500D close up lens/filter. I handheld and set the camera focussing to track focus– this function is an excellent reason why close up filters are better than tubes. The image is a crop of the central quarter of the image – it was a pretty small subject.
Post processing was minimal given the basic editing restrictions. I played with the colour and contrast and tried to get the best compromise in sharpening out of the naturally very sharp ant and the naturally very soft feather without using selections – all without obscuring more detail than necessary in the ant. This was all on my small travel laptop with a bad screen and so I am pleased that I got it roughly right (thank goodness for histograms).
Thanks!
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Place: 5 out of 292 Avg (all users): 6.9000 Avg (commenters): 8.4615 Avg (participants): 6.5970 Avg (non-participants): 7.0796 Views since voting: 3214 Views during voting: 303 Votes: 180 Comments: 24 Favorites: 10 (view)
This is really my kinda shot! I'm all so jealous now ;)
An amazing macro shot. Love it! :D 10
The contrast between the sandy colored surface and the ant is excellent the the feather leaves me speechless. Why? didn't come to mind at first though, but you gotta think why does the Ant need this object.
perhaps for obtain 8 from me? No 10 (I nearly never assign 9 it seems me a stupid vote) because i don't like the put of focus on the foreground (with macro it's very difficult obtain a great DOF) and the colours perhaps can be better. but is a great photo. I don't know your actual average but I think that this image can go far .
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