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Questions to guide your feedback
Shooting bees or butterflies atop flowers is hard enough but getting one in flight, especially difficult, especially in my garden which is loaded with hundreds of flowers all in close proximity. Both the butterflies and bees jump from one to the other constantly.
Other Information
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Image Description
I just counted the number of frames I shot to get this one image and it is well over 30. For me, shooting a bee in flight with moving wings but a clear body is akin to shooting a propellered aircraft and getting a sharp body with prop wash…1/60th or slower shutter with a good pan…only, I wasn’t paying attention to my camera settings, having shot a jazz group the night before in very dim lighting.
I mentioned to Diane recently the noise handling qualities of the Z50 and this is another example of that. I did do more NR but not like I would have had to do with my D850.
Technical Details
Nikon Z50, 24-120 @121mm
Processed in ACR, then PS and some contrast painting in TK9 and a little frequency separating around the wings.
Specific Feedback
I am fairly pleased with the aesthetic aspect of this image though compositionally, I wonder if a tighter, perhaps square crop might be better…but, I have to remember I am not working with a 47 MP image, only a 21MP which while nice will not hold up to too much file compression.
Critique Template
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Holy cow! I’d be delighted to capture something like this! I’ve about given up on bees. A very nice DOF and the blurred “propeller” is quite pleasing. Colors look good and the crop works just right for me. I keep holding up my hand to block a little from the right but the bee is so dynamic that I think the negative space there works. The hint of a pleasingly blurry fence/trellis/whatever in the BG also works, with a domesticated flower like this. (Completely irrelevant side thought: Have I ever seen a Zinnia in the wild? Don’t think so…) Delightful and very nice image!
My son and I collect the seeds from our Zinnias to replant each year (At peak season, we have close to 600 Zinnias in the gardens, along with Sunflowers (a few of which grew to over 9 feet tall and sported over 40 flowers, each), Marigolds, Milkweed, Firebush and Cosmos. Last year, in the woods around our area we randomly planted a few and all have sprouted beautiful flowers. Next year because of our bumper crop this year (so far), we plan to plant a few more.
The blurred propeller comes from “chiding” entry level photographers about freezing the props on moving aircraft which indicates too high a shutter speed for a proper pan.
I did the same thing with my hand, but in the end, I decided I needed to give the little bugger room to fly out of the frame, whereas a square crop might confine him too much.
Thanks for the thoughtful comments.
This is such a nice simple clean image Chris. Great catch to get the jump and nice job with the colors and the blurred wings all set in a clean soft grey BG.
Chris: Just the right SS to give a great result. I’m a little distracted by the not quite uniform BG. I wish it was either completely smooth or more defined. This presentation feels a little awkward to me but considering the overall excellence of this capture I wouldn’t have much angst about my concerns if I were you. Well done. >=))>
perfect title for this!
Great position of the bee, and catching the wing blur is a bonus.
The background fence silhouette detracts a little, but would be easy to remove.
Nice catch! Your patience paid off!
