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Honey Bee

Gallery: Macro & Close-upPosted July 15, 2013252 views15 comments

Canon7D, 60mm2.8Macro lens,1/2500sec,f4.5,ISO800, on tripod with remote shutter, morning sun.
Very active honey bees around New England Aster clump. Many attempts with a high failure rate. Taken from less than 1ft.

Comments

15 comments

Comment posted by Mark Seaver on July 15, 2013 at 3:13 PM

Great catch of the bumble bee in flight with sharpness exactly where it's needed. I like the oof flower on the right, it adds a lot to the story. I would clone out or burn in that bit of bright magenta in the lrc, it is a minor distraction. If you're using manual focus or even with a fixed focus hoping to get the bee in the right spot, a high failure rate is expected. I was doing that yesterday on a hummingbird moth and feel lucky to get 1 in 20 reasonably sharp, and many of those will be discarded. She's got a nice bag of pollen visible on that one leg. The background seems quite noisy, is this a large crop?

Registered on January 23, 2011, 1103 Posts, 17270 Comments

Comment posted by Daniel & Loana on July 15, 2013 at 3:34 PM

Wonderful shot, perfectly sharp and the OOF flower is great!

D&L

Registered on October 7, 2008, 166 Posts, 3044 Comments

Comment posted by scott lanz on July 15, 2013 at 7:34 PM

Super image, Roger. The detail is amazing. I can only imagine how many tries this took to get this in the focal plane at f4.5 at this close of a distance. Kudos on a great capture.

Registered on November 14, 2003, 840 Posts, 12902 Comments

Comment posted by John Tobias on July 15, 2013 at 11:18 PM

Well done!! The detail in the bee is great. I do find the brown area in the BG to be a bit distracting, but not much. Thanks for sharing.

Registered on September 12, 2009, 2120 Posts, 6455 Comments

Comment posted by Gary Yeoh on July 16, 2013 at 10:12 AM

Roger:

Superb! Tack sharp where is counts

You seems to have the insect in flight process thoroughly bedded.

Registered on September 1, 2009, 588 Posts, 8184 Comments

Comment posted by Jim Gavin on July 17, 2013 at 10:06 PM

I have had a terrible time attempting to capture a similar image. Many attempts with no suitable image. Thanks for including your specs. Great shot.

Registered on August 14, 2008, 293 Posts, 1250 Comments

Comment posted by Ian Wolfenden on July 21, 2013 at 2:48 PM

Superb capture of the bee, Roger - everything so sharp except for the whirring of the wing, which is so effective. Love how we see the proboscis poised presumably to feed off the enticing purple flower.

Registered on May 18, 2007, 1108 Posts, 7647 Comments

Comment posted by Ingrid Vekemans on July 24, 2013 at 12:15 PM

Well done to capture this one sharply in flight. A shutter speed of 1/2500s is not necessary though...you could easily have done with ISO400 hence reducing the BG noise. Still one to be proud of.

Grt, Ingrid.

Registered on August 2, 2010, 138 Posts, 780 Comments

Comment posted by Howard Cheek on July 25, 2013 at 7:27 PM

Congrats on this fine flight shot Roger, very nice detail/DOF.
Hard to get em' this good, well done!

Registered on July 24, 2008, 1201 Posts, 10758 Comments

Comment posted by Patrick O'Healy on July 26, 2013 at 10:21 AM

Stunning

Registered on March 13, 2011, 326 Posts, 1679 Comments

Comment posted by Nate Chappell on July 30, 2013 at 8:49 AM

Congrats Roger, great image!

Registered on February 1, 2006, 1158 Posts, 19528 Comments

Comment posted by SandyRichardsBrown on July 31, 2013 at 3:49 PM

Excellent to have gotten this guy in focus! Can't tell you how many failures I've had..
Congrats on the well-deserved WP!
Sandy