I went out today and spent a good hour in front of a plant with these flowers. I always like looking for flowers that make a good contrast with the bee. It was amazing watching this bee as she plowed into the pollen as it fell and stuck to her legs. This one was well position in the sunlight just hang on by this small stem. Used my Canon 90D and my 180 macro on high speed shooting. ISO 400 1/500 sec F/10.
Dean, this is one of your best bee shots yet, I think. Such details and color in both the flowers and the bee. I am thinking that maybe the background could use a bit of darkening, and maybe even some softening to keep the viewer’s eye on the subject. I do like the position of the bee, as well as how you placed the flowers in the image. Very nice.
Thanks @Shirley_Freeman, I agree about the background. I did a mild Radial Filter in Lightroom C but maybe more of it. I took like 500 shots within a hour and plan to go back today and try for more. This shot I did a back focus on the bee and then moved the flowers where they are. One problem was there was a lot of wind, so the pollen is kind of blurred here. I wanted to get the crisp detail of the pollen, but maybe that is not important, What do you think ?
Dean, I think you got everything sharp that needed to be, and that had a lot to do with your setting f10 for your f-stop, but, in doing that you got more of the background showing up. It is a give and take in a shot like this, but as far as I can see with these old eyes, you got the pollen, bee and flowers nicely. The background would be softer at f7.1 or 8 maybe, but then will all of the flower be sharp as well? When I am out on a shoot like this, I try my best to not get stuck on one setting, but try a higher and lower f-stop, and higher and lower shutter speed, because I can’t see everything perfectly on the back screen, not like I can on the computer after the shoot, and I don’t always get that second chance to go back and shoot. Another option for you in this setting is, maybe there is another group of flowers with good lighting and bees attracted to them, that is further away from the background, like higher up from the ground or other limbs. I have to admit, this is one thing I have struggled with myself is the background. I hope you have fun when you go back out to shoot. Maybe it won’t be so windy, that makes it hard to shoot any macro shots, for sure.
Dean: This is an outstanding capture of the bee, especially with the catch light in the eye. The dark stems in the BG are a major downer for me but I really like the bee and the flowers. I did a crop, added canvas below, used CA fill and came up with this. Taking 500 shots sounds about right to me when shooting moving critters. Aren’t you glad we’re not still using film!? Good luck with your hunt today. >=))>
1 Like
Oh, I really like what Bill did. I never gave it a thought to change to a vertical!
Thanks @Bill_Fach, I actually wanted this kind of view because it shows more below the bee. I forget about CW sometime. Awesome job Bill on taking out the dark branch, I thought you cropped that out but took it out another way.
Dean, the bee, her perch, and the flower are crystal clear. Bill’s crop and content aware fix really focus in on the bee. I think you could get something similar with a 4 x 5 crop and then lightening (or removing) the stem and darkening the lighter bits in the background. I do see a couple of edges where Bill used CA. Those edges are common when I use CA, they can be blended in with a low opacity clone.