Asian Paper Wasps.

[Dave Johnson]

Taken in August of this year. I tried to capture one of the wasps in flight and this was the best of many shots taken. Of all the bees, wasps and hornets species here, these are the easiest and most passive to work with.

1DX, 500 F4 II and 1.4X TC, tripod, manual focus at F11, 1/800, ISO 1600.

C&C welcome. Thanks for looking.
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[Jonathan Ashton]

Dave I really like this I have never seen anything remotely like it before. I can imagine you could spend hours and hours there waiting for an ideal shot and I think you have done pretty well with this one. Was the big lens out of necessity or was it just what you had with you at the time, in either event it works well.

[Arthur Morris]

Pretty darned cool. Next time work at f/8 and double the shutter speed. You might try a Contrast Mask on the bird--I mean the wasp, in flight. Unsharp Mask at 15/65/0 applied selectively to its face.

[Dave Johnson]

Jon and Arthur thanks for commenting. Jon between myself and the nest was an irrigation ditch which made getting close difficult and potentially messy! I had the 500 and extender on anyway, so took the easy option. I shot for a couple of hours in the morning, after that the sun moved away over my left shoulder leaving the honeycombs in shade and I didn't have a flash unit with me that day. Thanks for looking.
Arthur, thanks for the advice! I was concerned about having enough dof for the wasps in flight as they'd arrive and depart from all angles.

Best, DJ.

[Steve Maxson]

Pretty cool shot with the big "macro" lens and you were able to get both the flying wasp and the nest in sharp focus! The big lens also gave you a beautiful creamy background. As a minor tweak to this strong image, you might consider cloning some of the OOF elements around the edge of the frame - such as in the LLC. Very well done!

[David Cowling]

Great natural history shot. Something I have never seen before. Good advice from Arthur but really good anyway. TFS.

[Ron Conlon]

Great action shot, not something one can often say about a macro.

[Jerry van Dijk]

Very interesting image and what a gorgeous BG!

[Jess M. McKenzie]

Everything's beautiful, Dave. Thanks for showing this one. I want to try this on hornets with our new Tamron 150-600, hoping it'll be good enough. Can you remember your shooting distance? Hornets are NOT passive.

[Dave Johnson]

You are right there Jess! Hornets are incredibly aggressive especially Vespa mandarinia japonica a subspecies of the asian giant hornet we have here in Japan. They claim the lives of about 30 or 40 people annually. Take great care if you do decide to try photographing hornets. As for distance, I was probably about 6 or 7 meters away when I took this one.
Thanks for the comments everyone.

[Jess M. McKenzie]

Thanks, Dave. We have the Bald Faced Hornet (Dolichovespula maculata) and European Paper Wasp (Polistes dominula). I've photographed both, alive and dead.
I doubt we have any Vespa, but the other two are fierce enough for me. I'll use a long lens...;-)