Assignment: Macro - Bumblebee on Butterfly Weed

[Bill Dix]

Here's another bug. There's some motion blur in the wings. I personally don't mind the OOF flowers, but with a higher ISO and smaller aperture I might have brought them into focus and still kept the BG blurry. Comments appreciated.

D90; 18-70 VR @ 70mm. ISO 200, 1/1250 s. @F9.0. Matrix metering, Aperture Priority, AF-A.

Bill

[Gus Cobos]

This is one sweet image Bill,
the color rendition is spot on...I like the top capture and perspective...the soft multi colored background adds a very nice touch...and your bee is nice and sharp with lots of details...congrats...looking forward to your next creation...keep them coming...:):cool:

[Alfred Forns]

One of the better top views Bill I usually try getting them from the side so the eyes show but this is really good !!! ... did well with the aperture selection !!!

[Bob Miller]

Bill... I don't mind the slight blur to the wings. This bee is plenty sharp where he needs to be sharp. Would like to see more of the face.

[Christopher Miller]

Hi Bill, I like the colors and details. The top view isn't too bad, I would have just moved the camera up a little so that the eyes show more.

[Gail Spitler]

Bill - I also like the color combination and the bee is wonderfully sharp. The leaf directly below the bee is a bit distracting to me; cropping some off the bottom helps that a bit but doesn't solve the problem. The other thing I wondered about is the shadow or gray area to the left of the leg, what is that and do you want it there?
Cheers
Gail

[Bill Dix]

Thanks, all, for the encouraging comments. Gail, I know what you mean about the leaf. Cropping doesn't make it go away. I could visualize the image nicely without it, but it doesn't bother me excessively. I'm not sure what the grey area is -- it's not a shadow because it would be falling on distant blurred BG which would be impossible. It appears to be some sort of fuzzy, almost translucent hairs, which show up on both sides of both legs when you enlarge the image. I'm not up on my bee anatomy but I imagine they would be good pollen-collectors.

I'll try for a face shot next time.

Bill