bee macro

[noah]

having been inspired by the splendid macro's i've seen here in the last month or two i thought i should have a go. i got out the sigma 70-300 apo dg and the tripod and got this at iso200 f8 and 1/400 i think.

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e330/noahhowes/DSC_0987.jpg

i know very little about macro and just had a go. i'm just after advice on what was right/wrong and how i can improve it. should i have used a blip of fill flash etc...?

thank you all

[ShawWellPete]

Hi Noah,

I'm no expert but I like it. Did you use a close up lens with it?

[RobertP]

I don't see much wrong with it. The bee is in focus and draws your eye as the subject. The angle of the shot gives a sense of the flower being in the way so a slightly higher angle might have been better or letting the bee come over the flower more (if it would oblige of course :) )

Macro does get a little addictive. You start looking for that better shot and dreaming about that better lens etc. ;)

[dod]

Macro does get a little addictive. You start looking for that better shot and dreaming about that better lens etc. ;)
Yep, just "Now, how could I get a little bit closer?"

Nice shot :) Robert's summed it up pretty well :thumbs:

[Gandhi]

As above really, just a slightly higher angle to reveal more of the bee and you've nailed it really. The flower is just a bit too dominant in the frame at the moment.

[CT]

Good shot Noah, but it makes just a bit too much of the flower and not enough of the bee. This is a very similar shot I took a while ago.

http://gallery.talkphotography.co.uk/data/500/beeonflower1.jpg


The problem with bees as insects go - is they're so damned big, and depth of feld becomes a problem, particularly when you photograph them head on like that, but of course that's the most interesting view normally.

Your exposure is spot on - it's very easy to lose the head and eye detail with the head being predominantly black.

As far as flash goes, given a choice I'd far rather work by available light which usually means a bright sunny day. With the hard reflective bits which most insects have, it's difficult to avoid harsh flash reflections just where you don't want them not matter how you bounce or diffuse the flash.

It's a good shot though Noah, IMHO bees are one of the most difficult insects to photograph well due to the DOF problem, particularly with a macro lens, and the fact that they have such erratic movement patterns and are hardly ever still anyway.

[CT]

Actually there's two approaches you can take to this type of shot. You can keep striving to get ever closer resolving every hair on the insects head, which is satisfying and impressive in it's own way but seldom produces anything pictorial enough that you'd want to stick it on the wall; or show a little more of it's surroundings as you have here Noah. If the bee was a little less obscured by the flower I could see your shot as a wall hanger. :)

It's interesting that a lot of photo competitions with an insect theme stress that they want to see the bug in it's natural habitat, so they're not necessarily looking for extreme macro shots at all. ;)

[noah]

thankyou for the comments chaps.

SW4peter - it was shot with the sigma 70-300mm apo dg lens.

robert, dod and gandhi i see what you mean about the flower, perhaps a little higher and i would have got the wings in too, concentrating the eye on the bee a little more. and dod you're right about 'that little bit closer' i shall invest in a proper macro when the prorities and funds are right for sure, it's definately a new challenge, esp the moving ones!

cheers for the advice ct, very helpful. i chose f8 as i know this lens is sharp at that point, i'll give some smaller apertures a try to get more depth. i see what you mean about the surroundings, at the min it's my only choice without cropping as my lens goes to 1:2 not 1:1 but i think it does work in the this shot, or would with the critques taken into acount and re-shot ;)

thanks all, informative as usual :D