Lasius umbratus - Day 170 - Pupating

I just discovered a marvelous application for a 60 year old lens, some rubber bands, and my video camera!

This is a colony of North American Lasius umbratus that I started from a single queen and a host of Lasius alienus workers in April.

Music: Rapsodia Sueca nº1, Midsommarvaka, Op.19 (Hugo Alfven)

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• Lasius
• umbratus
• ant
• ants
• host
• workers
• yellow

[Pheidolepilifera]

Where did you obtain the lens you used for this video?

[molluskscommawethe]

@Pheidolepilifera I bought a Kiev 4A rangefinder camera off of eBay, and the lens (Jupiter-8) came with it. I actually used another lens while filming this, which was the exact same brand name, modeled to fit Zorki 4, which I also own...

I like cameras :P

[Pheidolepilifera]

@molluskscommawethe Thanks! I guess I have to get one of those! Your videos are amazingly clear with a high magnification and beautiful focus.

[molluskscommawethe]

@Pheidolepilifera Well, I only used those lenses because I had them on hand and they fit over my camcorder at the time. You need to know the diameter of the lens you are reversing them over, and then buy based off that. My new video camera has a lens twice as big as my old one, and the lenses I need to reverse are on the larger side (58mm diameter).

[Pheidolepilifera]

@molluskscommawethe How did you get sufficient lighting?

[molluskscommawethe]

@Pheidolepilifera I only had a HardCase LED Spotlight at the time, which was deceptively dim for photography use, at about 130lux. Most of the shots had to be brightened in post processing, and some still look pretty dim.

I bought two LED video lights which have worked great; one is 64 LEDs and 480lux, the other is 126 LEDs and can hit 1200lux. I used the smaller light in my first HD video. My next little production should make use of both lights.

[AgressiveInliners]

wow amazing quality.

[Lucretius40]

Nice work! I look forward to viewing more of your macro-films. ;-)

[AmericasAntNest]

Awesome! I'm Limes from MANF BTW!

[molluskscommawethe]

@ricardovdh It's some sort of artificial pumice brick (a little like Ytong.) It's what the nest is made out of.