These guys can be difficult to catch; what quick movers - they don’t stay in one spot for too long. Yesterday I got lucky! I managed to grab a couple of shots as this particular bee visited a pot plant temporarily placed under a tree on our front lawn.
Illumination provided by off-camera 580 EX flash. Shade provided by tree, beauty by the bee.
Thank you for looking and leaving your nice words.
I am enjoying my exploration of macro photography and how to light stuff at the macro level, notwithstanding the steep learning curve, many failures and struggles with off camera flash!
I purchased the 580EXII from Photocontinental – they had it on special at $549 which was as good as the grey import price at the time. I built an arm that fastens to the tripod ring mounting foot of the 100mm F2.8 and used the OC-3 cord to mount the 580 on the arm, some 4 or 5 inches above the lens hooded 100mm.
I’ll try to take and post a ‘photo, or better still, show you the home-made set up at the next BIMBO meet!
Nice set, could you share your settings? i also like the sound of your flash setup, i have been using the white paper hand held for bounce flash.
Hi Jason
I saved these as JPGs in CS4 so I think the EXIF should be embedded. For macro work, I usually shoot as follows with the 40D and 100mm F2.8 (non-L):
Shutter: 1/250 sec
Aperture: F11
ISO: 100
Focus: AI Servo (basically follow focus)
Focus point: centre only
Flash exposure compensation: varies between -1/3 and -2/3 stop.
These are set against a “Custom Setting” so I can just switch to C3 and the system is ready to go.
I always use auto focus because I use reading glasses for reading close up stuff, and my eyes struggle with manual focusing. Auto focus scores heaps more keepers than my attempts at manual focus, unless I can use a tripod and Live View!
Dennis,your macro results really look like they have advanced a great deal in the short time you have had the 580 EX flash,these bee pics are most amazing!Well done.The light seems to wrap around the subjects and appears nicer than the effect of ring flash.
The set up of how you have flash mounted sounded most interesting,when we spoke on the phone the other day.I look forward to seeing it,and so do other BIMBO's,by the look at the replies!
Look forward to meeting up,and putting my 430 EX flash as a slave for your 580 EX,be interesting to see results.
