Honey Bee

[David Cowling]

One from the summer which seems very far away now.

Canon 7D2 Canon 100-400 L Mk2 at 400mm Hand Held

1/160th @ f 16 ISO 500

[Jonathan Ashton]

Optimal timing - pin sharp lovely shot. Initially I thought include the petals at the base ..but then the bee would be a little small and then beg the question is it a shot of the bee or the flower?

[David Cowling]

Thanks Jonathan. Your thoughts are the same as mine on the composition. I am really staggered by the quality of this lens, both for distant and close up subjects.

[Diane Miller]

Good choice of crop, as I suspect the bottom petals would have been OOF. But you got wonderful DOF. Wonder about a subtle gradient burn at the bottom, with a lowering of contrast.

Agreement from me on that lens!

[David Cowling]

Hi Diane. Thanks for your comments. I would love to try a subtle gradient burn if I knew how!! Do you mean to darken the bottom of the image a little?

[Diane Miller]

Yes -- in PS choose the Gradient tool (halfway down the toolbar). Hit Q to go into quick mask mode, and drag the cursor from the bottom up maybe 1/5 of the way into the canvas. (Hold Shift to make the transition level.) Let go and hit Q again to make the mask a selection. Then choose Curves or Levels and darken slightly. The layer will be fully editable at any time. As I add other local adjustments I often want to tweak previous ones a little.

If you want irregular shapes you can use a large brush to paint the mask.

You can also do it in ACR/LR but if I'm going to PS with an image I like waiting on things like this so they are editable.

[David Cowling]

Thank you very much for that information Diane. Another nugget to be stored away for when I need it. Here is a RP using your suggestion.156905

[Diane Miller]

You're welcome! It looks like you have darkened the midtones here, thus bringing up saturation a little. Another option is to darken from the lighter tones. Make a Curves and pull the right end straight down, instead of pulling down the middle or darkening in a Levels.

And of course the shape of the darkened area (the mask) can be altered with the black and white brushes. More details here:

http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php/117406-Making-Local-Adjustments-in-Adobe-Photoshop-using-Quick-Mask-Mode

[Steve Maxson]

You captured a very nice pose - and with excellent sharpness for hand holding at 1/160! Helpful suggestions by Diane, above. Very well done!

[Arthur Morris]

A real stunner with great techs and sharpness. Try a crop from the bottom to tighten up the composition. From just above the black mark on the leaf on the left, the one that intersects the frame edge. I am telling you that that would improve it 100%. a