Saturday, February 25, 2012

Success or Failure?


I had a 100 mm macro lens on my camera on this day and was filming ants on the peonies.  This ant was about the same size as the ones I have posted over the last few days - maybe a little less than one-half inch from head to tail.  This gives you some idea of how shallow depth of field is when shooting close up like this.  Just as I took the shot, the ant turned, walking away from me.  Before it turned, it's entire body was in focus because the plane of focus is parallel to the front of the camera.  To get enough light without using flash, I had the camera aperture wide open, meaning depth of field was minimal to begin with.  It also means things out-of-focus are very soft, and I like that look.  But, the lesson here is how shallow depth of field can be with close-up photography and how little of the ant - even at half-an-inch - is in focus. 

I was going to initially pitch the image, but after studying it for a moment, I liked it.  I thought it gave a clue to how large a world even a flower is to an ant.

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