Sleepy Bee

[Mitch Carucci]

It was cool early this morning, and I came across this sluggish bee. He even allowed me to shoot off a three image stack.

Tokina 100 f2.8 @ f5.6 on Olympus EP-2 (M4/3rds).

[Allen Sparks]

Hi Mitch, I like the composition with the bee on top of the flower stalk. A little more room on top would probably help the image. There seems to be a halo or artifacts around the bee body perhaps due to the focus stacking.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Mitch a powerful image, I haven't done image stacking for a long time so I am out of touch but there seems to be a problem with the stacking or sharpening or both. The edge of the fine hairs shows a distinct border which should not be there - very noticeable on the front of the head by the eye. The overall sharpening seems to be very strong giving the bee a refractile appearance.

[Mitch Carucci]

Thanks Allen & Jonathan. Yes, over enthusiastic sharpening. Is this one any better?

[Norm Dulak]

Thanks Allen & Jonathan. Yes, over enthusiastic sharpening. Is this one any better?

Hi Mitch. This is much better, and cropping a little less tightly has also improved this image. But one consequence of the wider crop is that the sharp blossom at the lower right corner now really stands out. If it were mine, I think I'd remove it. Overall, this is now very nice.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Mitch this is much better - very nice indeed. I would suggest a little NR on the background and on the wings of the bee, then you have a super image.

[Jason Stander]

Hi Mitch... beautiful shot... good detail and exposure... I am still one minded about the comp... is there any more canvas for a diagonal perch... agree with the above nits and crits... still beautiful... WD!:w3

[OvidiuCavasdan]

Repost looks much better, good looking bee and beautiful colors. Well done.

[Arthur Morris]

The very fine repost addresses all of the issues I was going to comment on. Nice image. An even wider view, perhaps a vertical, might have been even better. There does seem to be some sort of issue with the now more-pronounced dark edge of the green leaf in the upper right.

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Mitch. Lots of good suggestions above and your repost is a big improvement. The one additional thing that I would mention is that there appears to be some significant color noise particularly on the bee's dark abdomen. Fortunately, this is fixable (I usually correct for this during the initial RAW conversion in Adobe Bridge). A few tweaks and you will have a fine image!