Bombus Hortorum

[readingr]

I bought a canon 100mm macro last year and finally got a chance to try it out. How did I do?

Roger R.

[readingr]

Oops! added wrong photo.

Roger R.

[Ridgetop]

It's hard to pick out your focus point on this one. The stamen on the flower maybe? The key to good macros is to have either all, or a particular area, very sharp so people can see the wonderful details of the item or critter being photographed. Also, flower is pretty blown out on the lower area. Did you have enough light that you could have shot around F4.0 or greater for a little more depth and easier focus?

[armando_m]

Orange tree?

Bees (live) a pretty hard subject for a first try

Bees do no stay still long enough for me to focus the macro lens

[readingr]

Thanks for the comment,

Ridgetop: This was taken at 17:00 in the evening and there was not enough light to increase the aperture as I needed the speed. I will take the flash with me later today and try again.

armando: You said it, they seem to be constantly on the move and the camera and lens were having difficulty keeping up with the little critters.

Roger R.

[LeeIs]

Nice to see you posting again Roger.

Tough subject. This kind of macro photography needs to be extra sharp and without any motion blur. It also needs to isolate the subject from the background. I think the bee doesn't stand out in the shot.

[readingr]

Went out again but with flash this time - still learning

What do you think of this one - sharper but composition dreadful? They just ignore all my directions on how to pose

I'm finding this to be a completely different ball game to landscapes :idea:

Roger R.

[SmartWombat]

Stalking insects is a hard business.
I remember taking 3 days to get a photo of a Dark Green Fritillary (Argynnis aglaja).
And a friend laying out a dead rat as bait a week before the photo for the Purple Emperor (Apatura iris).

My setup was a Zenit-EM with 100mm with 35mm extension rings and two flashes, one on camera and one on a L bracket. Flash sync at 1/250 and f/22 with 100ASA film. Working distance was about 18".
Chasing butterflies across the meadow with that lot on a tripod was a young man's game!

Nowadays I look for a likely plant and wait in ambush
With a stool and remote release

[readingr]

Paul,

It's been a while since we got together, are you fully recovered?

Thanks, for the tips, but I will draw the line at staging with dead animals, I'd forgotten you were a bug expert so I hope I got the right species in the naming of the bumble bee.

I am tempted to try your tripod with remote release to get a shot. The problem is it could take a very long time to get one of these. The plant is in a shaded area of the garden so even in bright sunlight I cannot get enough speed. I an using an adaptor to convert the 430EX into a ring flash which works in most cases but the extension tubes puts the lens a lot further forward than the flash ring which does create some shadows. Plan is to test this tonight on something in the house to see what the effects really are.

Fasted speed I have managed so far is 1/200 at F2.8 or if I set it to F8 then it drops to 1/50 that is with the flash which doesn't quite freeze the critters.

Any tips on settings I could try?

Roger R.

[SmartWombat]

Probably you want to underexpose the natural light, and use flash to freeze them.

Because my two flashes were fixed output and different GN I could get good illumination from the on-camera flash and then fill shadows with the off-camera flash.

Today I'd probably use a softbox on the flash to get a 10"x8" diffused flashbox to illuminate and fill the shadows. Use that off camera on full power for the illumination (but the 580EX II might not have enough power?) instead of the two naked flashes I used as a teenager. Maybe the softbox would be good enough on-camera to give you portability and more stalking/pouncing opportunity.

Flash ought to freeze the critters.
Problem is with 1/200 fastest flash sync is there will always be an amount of daylight exposure unless you go to ISO50 and a really small aperture. Even then in bright sunlight it's going to be difficult, which is why I photographed butterflies on flowers, not bees scurrying about

[readingr]

Paul,

Thanks for the description and I now have some ideas on what to try tomorrow to capture these chaps.

Roger R.