Bee in Flight

GrittyShaker

GrittyShaker

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Scott
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I spent about 20 minutes (I would have liked longer, but the roast was ready :D ) chasing bees around a hawthorn bush on Sunday. This was the best I could manage. Although the bokeh is fairly pleasant, it's far too distracting for my liking. I really wanted a nice, clear blue sky as the backdrop, but the bees were having none of it. :razz:


Bee Line by S_M_Photography, on Flickr

Shot with my Sigma 17-70 and OCF on a C-bracket, then cropped in a bit. Does anyone have a decent technique for shooting flighty bees? Maybe choosing a specific bit of blossom and waiting for the bee to come to me, instead of pursuing it myself? :thinking:
 
well done for getting a Bee while flying - I tried some butterflys a couple of years ago and got zero results

The top images I have seen for this is using 2 or 3 speedlites and firing them with an infra red trigger obvilously pre focusing on a spot where the trigger will get activated, then its a case of sit and wait
as for attracting them I would try email a few Bee keepers for some ideas and help
Cheers
Chris
 
Very Good Scott

I was photographing some birds amongst blossom today. I'd have been better off trying the bees as there were loads buzzing about but I was stuck with 400mm.
 
Buttkicker said:
well done for getting a Bee while flying - I tried some butterflys a couple of years ago and got zero results

The top images I have seen for this is using 2 or 3 speedlites and firing them with an infra red trigger obvilously pre focusing on a spot where the trigger will get activated, then its a case of sit and wait
as for attracting them I would try email a few Bee keepers for some ideas and help
Cheers
Chris
Click to expand...

Cheers. (y)

Thanks for the suggestions. It's a shame Yongnuo triggers don't allow anything quicker than ~1/250th. I'm sure I could do a better job with a couple of off-camera Speedlites, even if I didn't have a fancy IR trigger.

The hawthorn was swarming with bees, so I might go back this weekend and make more time for chasing them around. :)

dinners said:
Very Good Scott

I was photographing some birds amongst blossom today. I'd have been better off trying the bees as there were loads buzzing about but I was stuck with 400mm.
Click to expand...

Thanks Phil. I must admit, the Sigma wasn't the ideal lens for the job, but it's the best I've got at the moment. I might just need more practice with it.
 
i think you have done a good job on catching the bee in flight. The background isn't too bad either.
 
Impressive! The subject is very sharp, and I don't find the background too distracting. Yes, it would have been nice to have a lovely Blue sky as a background, but that just gives you something to chase for next time.

Great shot. (y)
 
Cheers all. :)

I usually use my 70-300 with Raynox attached for most of my macro stuff, but that focuses far too closely, and with far to shallow a DOF for this sort of thing.

The Sigma is OK, and focuses to 20cm, which is a good enough distance. The only problem is that it is painfully slow to focus.

I was using flash to try and get a decent shutter speed. Although high speed shooting would be ideal with good light, I'm not sure how easy that will be to manage when I have to use a fairly narrow aperture to get a reasonable DOF. It's all a bit of a balancing act.

Great fun though. I hope I can get some better examples posted up in the not too distant future. (y)
 
that is a really beautiful shot bee and plant nice and sharp and great light
 
Hi Scott,

Think you've nailed it with your critique on the b/g, but really good freezing of the bee and beautiful composition with the blossom.

A bee/ hoverfly in flight was my personal challenge for last Summer, so I spent a lot of time practicing just this thing; plus getting advice from people on here and finding the technique that worked best for me.

This is probably the best one that I managed :


Hoverfly in flight with white Heather3 by SarahLee1001, on Flickr

And a close crop of the same one to show the detail
To put it into perspective the flowers are heather and only a few mm across. The hover was about 1cm long :



If it helps, I found it easiest to study the flight patterns of the bees / hoverflies for a while before even picking up the camera. You'll often find that they'll repeatedly come back to the same individual flower. Plus if you sit very still while watching them, they begin to completely ignore you.


I'd then frame up for the composition that I wanted with "a popular flower" in shot and an idea of the spot that I wanted the bug to be in for the final photo (in this one I wanted a very dark fence as the backdrop) I'd just wait a few minutes for the insect to fly past again . . . IMO far better than chasing them around.
Last year, I was only using the 18-55mm kit lens, so like you the slow autofocus was a bit of an issue and it did take a bit of practice to get the timing right. I'd have to half depress the shutter just a fraction of a second before the bug's eye passed over the focus point that I'd selected . . . tricky, but with practice I ended up with a pretty high keeper rate.

A lot of people suggested MF for this sort of thing, but it really didn't work for me at all.
However, OCF was an absolute godsend. Didn't get on with the real highspeed stuff at all.

Can't wait to try again this year, now that I have the 100mm macro :D
 
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GrittyShaker said:
Thanks for the suggestions. It's a shame Yongnuo triggers don't allow anything quicker than ~1/250th. I'm sure I could do a better job with a couple of off-camera Speedlites, even if I didn't have a fancy IR trigger.
Click to expand...

Don't worry too much about the shutter speed it's the flash duration that will freeze the action;) Nice capture!
 
RJL2005 said:
Don't worry too much about the shutter speed it's the flash duration that will freeze the action;) Nice capture!
Click to expand...

Good point! :bonk:

Thanks for the comments all. :)

Some good suggestions there Sarah, thanks muchly. Nice shots too. The black BG works well. (y)

I didn't go out with the intention of shooting bees in flight, so perhaps next time I can be more prepared. I was just on the way back to the car when I spotted the shrub swarming with them, and decided to stop off and see what I could do.
 
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