For Baz - natural light macros, Sigma 105 lens, and BEES!

[troypiggo (Troy)]

Went out this morning to shoot specifically to show off the Sigma 105 macro lens. I was also going to show off that cheap little flash I was talking about, my wife's Sunpak PZ42 with Lumiquest Softbox, but not being used to it I was having trouble with the FEC. See if you can tell which shots were natural and which were flash

Oh, and I was extremely happy with this little bee. Closest I've ever got to this species, and it was quite happy for me to shoot it at 1:1. I thanked him and went on my way...

[Lumen Miner (Mitchell)]

Great set!! I'm not even going to guess, they are all lit well.

[Dennis]

Lovely shots Troy, very nice indeed.

Wing reflections on 2 & 4 suggest use of a flash?
Eye reflection and hot spots on shoulder and knees on 3 suggests flash?

Cheers

Dennis

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

I'd say #1 natural light, the rest flash. Nice sweat bee Troy. I'm yet to spot one of these beauties. I love their eyes, wonderful. Excellent series, the lighting on the flash shots is certainly acceptable. It's almost impossible to avoid all hotspots from my experience.

Dave

edit: the real give away is the background. and the diffraction lighting on the right eye in the first image as well (you typically get this when you don't stop down enough or focus isn't perfect).

2nd edit: slight colour cast on the first image (at least according to my eyes and monitor, doesn't really detract from the image imho) so I couldn't resist having a play in Photoshop. Good practice to do so. One can see the colour cast easiest on the Green stem. I also cropped to what I think is a better cropping size ;-) Hope you don't mind Troy.

[troypiggo (Troy)]

According to the EXIF #1 and #2 were flash on, #3 and #4 natural light. My use of flash is very subtle, I don't like to be able to tell it's been used. And I couldn't remember myself, had to check the EXIF metadata.

Dave - no worries on editing. Thanks. Using the modded 40D and white balance is always a little touchy.

PS - it's definitely not a sweat bee. It's very similar to a blue-banded, but the stripes on back weren't noticeably blue, though the rest of it's features did look the same. It's some sort of solitary bee, maybe a carpenter bee? It was quick like a blue-banded, but my patience paid off waiting for about 15mins for it to settle down, cleaning itself.

Edit: I've fixed the WB and contrast a little. It was definitely off. Stupid batch processing in LR - still getting used to it.

[Dennis]

Originally Posted by troypiggo

According to the EXIF #1 and #2 were flash on, #3 and #4 natural light.

...., maybe a carpenter bee?

LOL! Thanks Troy – so much for my guess work, back to macro lighting school for me!

Here is a Carpenter bee, I think? It was the size of a 747 and it buzzed me, almost scaring me out of my pants!

Cheers

Dennis

[bloodhound31]

Love that last one Troy. Very warm. That natural light is great! I might have to drag myself out of bed early to catch the morning light.

Great show of the 105 mate. I like the way the whole bee is in focus.

Baz.