Winners of Close-Up Photographer of the Year (theatlantic.com)

Pretty amazing collection, thanks for sharing. Ant Works 1 was my favorite.

Some of those are absolutely stunning.

I am happy to see that you don't need a fancy equipment to take a stunning photo, like that stag beetle fight.

https://www.nikonsmallworld.com/ was on HN this month IIRC.

Wow, some really great entries and winners. The macro world is so interesting. The little I've dabbled has always resulted in some new discovery of a part of a flower or insect that you'd never notice otherwise. I've never gone all in and bought a macro lens, but with some cheap extension tubes (https://photographylife.com/what-is-an-extension-tube) and a manual focus lens you can do a really nice job for quite cheap!

Direct link with no paywall or Facebook advert here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25069976

Damn, I was trying to avoid buying new camera gear this Black Friday.

I couldn't decide which one is my favorite. All of them are incredible beautiful.

I couldn't decide which one is my favorite. All of them are pretty incredible!

Some of these mention using "focus stacks". What is that, taking multiple images at different focus depth and combining them digitally?