Nomad Bee

GardenersHelper

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Nick
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I went out into the garden yesterday afternoon to test a replacement 45-175, the old one that I have used for some years having broken (it is a power zoom lens and it recently decided that it preferred to be at wide angle. I would zoom to telephoto and it would zoom straight back again!) These were captured with a Raynox 150 on the 45-175, on a Panasonic G9, and possibly also a second 150. (One of the disadvantages of the 45-175 is that it doesn't give me quite as much magnification as I would like so I end up having to use a more powerful close-up lens(es), which means a smaller working distance, which I'm not keen on).

As usual I used a Venus Optics KX800 twin flash, shot raw and processed using presets in DXO PhotoLab and Silkypix, with image-specific adjustments in Lightroom. There are 1300 pixel high versions of these images in this album at Flickr.

The eight in this post were captured in 50 seconds as I followed the bee as it moved between the flowers on a Choisya bush.

#1

1483 03 2018_05_10 P1002468_PLab SP7 LR 1300h
by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#2

1483 04 2018_05_10 P1002466_PLab SP7 LR 1300h
by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#3

1483 06 2018_05_10 P1002470_PLab SP7 LR 1300h
by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#4

1483 07 2018_05_10 P1002471_PLab SP7 LR 1300h
by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#5

1483 08 2018_05_10 P1002474_PLab SP7 LR 1300h
by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#6

1483 09 2018_05_10 P1002475_PLab SP7 LR 1300h
by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#7

1483 10 2018_05_10 P1002476_PLab SP7 LR 1300h
by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#8

1483 11 2018_05_10 P1002477_PLab SP7 LR 1300h
by gardenersassistant, on Flickr



Continued in next post ....
 
Excellent set, these can be quite skittish, and not stay still for long at all. You did well getting any shots. Never mind shots this good. Savage.

Thanks Derek. It/they were moving around quite a lot. With two or three of them (#4, #5, #6) it may have been in motion as the shot was captured. I'm well pleased with the responsiveness of the autofocus with my latest setup, especially as I was as usual working hand-held (and I don't have steady hands). I don't recall it being breezy for these, but it is breezy so much here I might not have noticed if it was. Anyway, the autofocus does work well in breezy conditions too. I suspect there may be a particularly short latency between it gaining focus and capturing the shot with this rig. (I don't half-press to gain focus then fully depress the shutter button; I use a "straight through" action fully depressing the shutter button so the only gap between focus and capture is the camera latency.)
 
Lovely work as usual Nick

Thanks Alf. My apologies to you and others for not responding much to posts in the forum. I've been concentrating quite hard on my own stuff for a while, with a fair amount of non-photographic stuff thrown in too. I'll try to get back into contributing some more.
 
As above (Alf), great stuff as always Nick.
Always glad to see your shots here :)
 
Having looked at them on my PC I note that you have two species here IMO with the change being from #12 onwards note the stripes are black and the two yellow dots between the wings it could be Nomada Marshamella with the first being Nomada Flava panzer but these are difficult to species IMO.

http://www.bwars.com/bee/apidae/nomada-marshamella

http://www.bwars.com/bee/apidae/nomada-flava
Well done - by the way BWARS is a great society to join if you are interested in Bees/Ants/Wasps. I got the latest magazine the other day and it was great.
 
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