Blue Banded Bee in flight

[Dennis]

Hello,

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.:)

Cheers

Dennis

[duncan]

Great shots Dennis. Just enough depth to get a good look at the flowers as well. I certainly enjoyed looking at them.
Cheers,
Duncan:)

[Liz]

Great shots Dennis ..... bee looks very content sucking up tbhe nectar of that very pretty flower. :thumbsup:

[StephenM]

Great shots Dennis! They are very difficult to capture so you've done well!

Cheers,
Stephen

[lacad01]

Top stuff Dennis. :thumbsup:
I've seen these little guys in the neighbour's flowers and have often wanted to have a go at shooting but as you say very flighty

[astro_south]

Good shooting Dennis :thumbsup:

[Dennis]

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!:help:

Cheers

Dennis

[troypiggo]

Hey hey! They're great! Lights, camera, action! :)
The exposure looks great. Don't normally like the black background, but it really works on these.

What off-camera flash system are you using?

[Dennis]

Hi Troy,

Thanks!

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!;)

Cheers

Dennis

[troypiggo]

Bring eeeeeeet! :)

[Insane Climber]

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.

[Dennis]

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!

Cheers

Dennis

[hotspur]

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.

cheers Chris

[Dennis]

Okay – here we go. This is a photo of the “naked” flash mounting bracket. I was using the camera and flash to take the photo!;)

Cheers

Dennis

[ving]

super stuff as per usual dennis! :)

[Dennis]

Thanks David – I’m enjoying my foray into the macro world; no more late nights, except for image processing the critters of course!

Cheers

Dennis

[ving]

are you less "dazzled by the cosmos" these days dennis?

[Dennis]

LOL! Still dazzled by the cosmos, but also marvelling at macros!;)

Cheers

Dennis

[starfinder]

Beautiful shots highlighting the great skill and patience of the photographer. Well done! :thumbsup: