I have been trying to capture a bee in flight. Here I used a 90D 100-400 ii 1/1000 F/18 ISO 1250 at 400mm. Compared to the 180 macro this lens is very fast auto focus. These guys are still moving fast. This one is better but still a little soft. Any suggestions on the tryp of composition I should try for. Is it ok if the wings are blurred a bit for motion No flash but I am shooting I think 10 fs No post process here, just as shot
Very nice, Dean. Especially if this is straight out of the camera. That 100-400 is fast. I have the Mark I of it, and have used it for fast moving creatures. You stopped the action nicely. I have no problem myself with wing movement, as I think that helps indicate the subject in motion, which can be a nice addition. Because you had not done any editing, and you had questions about composition, and thought that the image was soft, I took the liberty to download it and edit in LR. It sharpens up nicely when I sharpened it in LR, so I think you have sharp image. I cropped it down pretty drastically. Not sure if you could have got any closer to the bee using that lens as it doesn’t let you focus as close as the 180 does. You can put an extension tube on the 100-400, and that will help you get closer to the subject. I don’t think I would have used f18 on this, using that lens, as it is giving you a busy background. When we are in real close in macro with a macro lens, then we need to use f18 or something like that. I boosted the contrast, and calmed the highlights a bit, and used a bit of vignette. I just wanted you to be able to see the possibilities you have in this image, and show rather than try to tell you what I thought might be a good composition. Hopefully this helps.
Thanks Shirley. I did a comparison with the mark1 when I got the mark ii and with this one it was night and day, so was the price. I have a extension tube. I will try opening more wide and use the tube. At 400mm 3 feet is focus for this lens. What you did was awesome. Thanks
1 Like
Dean, I’ve been trying to capture bees in flight, unsuccessful, for some time now, so I think this is a great photo. I read and appreciate what Shirley said, how she interpreted and processed your photo, i learned a lot. Thanks for positing this.
1 Like
Dean, the front side of the bee and the pollen sack look decently sharp. To avoid a busy background, you need to find “good” spots to set up as you wait for the fliers. I believe that the issue of wing blur is what I call “artists choice”. With insects, it’s rare to get enough dof to tell if the wing tips are moving or not. (and @linda_mellor) For a fast flying insect, 1/2500s is sometimes not fast enough to freeze the wing motion. I managed several flying insect shots last summer by going to manual with the iso set to automatic, while setting my ss at 1/2500 and the f stop at f/9 or f/10. Even under full sunlight, my iso’s varied from 1600 to 5000! While most of the time the wing motion looked to be frozen, the wing ends were always out-of-focus, on a few occasions, the highlights showed wing movements.
Thanks Linda and Mark. I have set iso on auto and that works well, just need a lot of light to avoid really high iso but I think the limit can be set. Thanks about the busy background. It confirms what I was thinking
Dean: Good initial capture and I really like what Shirley did with the crop. I have a Sony 70-400 that is really sharp and fast but sometimes find using extension tubes on a zoom lens on moving subjects to be maddening. Give it a try but I often eschew the tubes and satisfy myself with a crop. Also the longer working distance definitely lets you use a more open aperture and boost the SS. >=))>
thanks Bill, I hope to do that this weekend where I work, if the snow is gone 