Beehive Cluster – A Macro interpretation!

[Dennis]

Hello,

Here is a collection of bees from our back garden, captured over the last few days. We have a very fragrant shrub that attracts the bees, as well as a variety of ants, flies and other exotic looking insects.

The Yellow Carpenter Bee and the Blue Banded Bees were quite difficult to capture as they moved very rapidly and didn’t seem to want to settle for more than a nano-second.

The first 3 shots were taken with the Canon EF-S 60mm F2.8. Then, unexpectedly, I received an early Xmas present of the Canon 100mm F2.8 with which the remainder (5) were captured – the increased working distance sure made life a lot easier.

Now that my focus and tracking techniques are improving, next, I’ll look at improving the flash/daylight compensation to produce a more pleasing balance.

Thanks for looking!

Dennis

[Marke (Mark)]

Good job there Dennis the 100mm will be a lot easier to use.

[astro_south (Andrew)]

Wow Dennis - great collection there - variety and so many caught on the wing!

So all those not so subtle hints hit the mark with the 100 f2.8 Congrats on that!

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

Dennis - *wow* you've done an awesome job and I'm totally impressed. Normal Bees are hard to get, Blue Banded Bees even harder.

Love your work.

Dave

[TrevorW]

Very nice images

[troypiggo (Troy)]

Excellent series. Very well done on all of them. Can tell you're gonna love the 100mm.

PS - when you mentioned "Bee Hive Cluster" I had this shot of mine in mind.

[StephenM (Stephen)]

Great work Dennis! And well done on scoring the 100mm!

Cheers,
Stephen

[ving (David)]

fantastic collection there!

[Dennis]

Thanks guys!

I had a major ‘light bulb” moment with the BIMBO’s which really put me on the right path in terms of approach, technique and camera settings. Prior to that I just shot from the hip and got the occasional hit, but mostly scored wide misses!

The transition from the 60mm to the 100mm is only a matter or 40mm in focal length and perhaps 55mm in terms of subject distance, yet that extra 2 inches really has made a difference in my success rate and keepers.

My initial forays with the 100mm F2.8 has it “hunting” for focus more so than the 60mm F2.8 did, but I strongly suspect this is because of my technique rather than any inherent short coming of the 100mm.

I also changed the ring flash settings on the MR-14EX to 1/3 stop under exposure which has better suited the stuff I have done to date.

The weight of the 40D + 100mm F2.8 + MR-14EX is a bit unforgiving, so I’m going to look into mounting my ball and socket head on my Manfrotto monopod to support the weight!

Cheers

Dennis

PS – in CS4, I review the shots and allocate ratings from * to ***** (stars) for each frame and then delete the * shots. I usually end up with about 4 or 5 ***** shots from a session of perhaps 100 exposures, so you are seeing the best of my best above!

[Marke (Mark)]

Some tips Dennis
Dont use auto focus, set the mag/focus you want and move in and
out till you have focus manually.
Dont use a ring flash they are terrible, use a dedicated flash
off camera and as close to subject as possible.
Dont use a tripod - you dont need it if using flash and fast moving
subjects.
I can get perfectly sharp pics with a 200mm macro +close-up attachments hand held.

Use a DOF of at least f11 - f16 depending on available light
and adjust you iso to give you a good exposed background.

[Dennis]

Originally Posted by Marke

Some tips Dennis
Dont use auto focus, set the mag/focus you want and move in and
out till you have focus manually.
Dont use a ring flash they are terrible, use a dedicated flash
off camera and as close to subject as possible.
Dont use a tripod - you dont need it if using flash and fast moving
subjects.
I can get perfectly sharp pics with a 200mm macro +close-up attachments hand held.

Use a DOF of at least f11 - f16 depending on available light
and adjust you iso to give you a good exposed background.

Thanks for those tips Marke – they are broadly the same as suggested by the BIMBO’s on our earlier macro outing.

Cheers

Dennis

[Dennis]

Originally Posted by troypiggo

>snip
PS - when you mentioned "Bee Hive Cluster" I had this shot of mine in mind.

A beautiful photo Troy and much more representative of the subject title line!

Cheers

Dennis