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Peter Farrell
12-26-2009, 04:39 PM
http://i440.photobucket.com/albums/qq128/peterf/BeeonMarigold.jpg

Sony A700, Sigma 105mm Macro, f14, 1/80, iso400
Taken in my front yard in Williamsburg, VA on 10/02/09
Full Frame Hand Held

Ed Cordes
12-26-2009, 09:27 PM
Nice color with a super impact. I just wish the bee had its head up so the eyes were more visible.

Allen Sparks
12-27-2009, 12:28 AM
nice composition with good view of the bee's wings. The bee is actually sharper than what I would expect at 1/80 hand held. Taking the bee at more of a diagonal would also have been a good choice if the background allowed. I would clone out what appears to be a sensor spot towards the upper left.

Julie Kenward
12-27-2009, 08:07 AM
Peter, you've got some super sharp details on the bee but you do have a few things you could work on here. First, look at your choice of composition with the Rule of Third's (ROT's) guide in place. (If you don't know how to set that up check out this thread in the Educational Resources forum:

http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=52894

Ideally, you would want the head or body of the bee to be right at one of the intersections of gridlines - so a shift of the image to the right and down a bit would work to make a stronger image in this case. As you have it now, the bee is pretty much centered and a slight adjustment would move his head into a better position.

Also, can you see how much red is woven into the shadows of your yellow flowers? If you open the histogram viewer in Photoshop (window/histogram) and go to the red channel (window/channels then click on the red channel) you can see that it spikes quite a bit to the right side. Now, open the levels adjustment and click on "auto" and you'll see the entire image shift so that the yellows are more true yellow and the intense red calms down. Very easy fix!

It's always nice to have a view of the insects eyes so we can make eye contact with them but...that said...I love the "face deep in the flower" look as well. He's certainly doing what bees do and it makes for a good behavioral image.

Peter Farrell
12-27-2009, 08:52 AM
Thanks everyone for the helpful comments. I am really learning a lot from posting on this web site and will subscribe soon. I should give more explanation with my posts; I was trying to capture this bee with it's head down feeding, it was a chilly day so the bee was pretty slow moving (hence the sharpness at 1/80), I cropped the bee into the center to print a 4x6 photo for a 5x7 mat and wanted the bee as large as possible but, Jules, I understand what you are saying and agree with you.

Thanks again,
Peter

Craig Markham
12-27-2009, 01:33 PM
Beautiful detail, Peter. I agree with Jules that having the bumblebee at the very center creates less of an impact than placing it a little more toward the upper left. I'm perfectly happy with the way you showed the bee digging into the flower, just as they do much of the time. I think the bee's right eye (on viewer's left) is shown perfectly; the left eye is obscured somewhat by shadow, but is clearly there -- you just have to look for it a bit more. Even the three small ocelli (also light-sensitive organs) arranged in a triangle centered between the eyes are represented, catchlight and all.

With their combination of bright yellows and deep black markings, I've found the bumbles difficult to capture well in bright light. You nailed the exposure here, capturing the full gamut of color value from highlights to shadow. Thanks for sharing this.


--Craig

Jerry van Dijk
12-27-2009, 02:23 PM
Hi Peter, I like the contrast between the marigolds and the black of the bee and the details you have captured here. Also like the "diggin' for hunny" composition. Applying the ROT would work wonders. Just crop a bit of the left, which will also get rid of the distracting green spot in the BG.

Mike Moats
12-28-2009, 07:06 PM
Hey Peter, agree on the bulls eyed look, has a composed look rather then a natural feel. Great focus on the head and don't mind the bee doing what it naturally does in this image. ;)

Vida van der Walt
01-05-2010, 06:33 AM
Hi Peter. Nice shot. I like the detail, sharpness and colours. As this is full frame and I think you should have enough pixels to play with, I would go with a vertical crop. It would get rid of the green colours in the image. As the head of the bee faces to the left you could leave more space on the left when cropping.:)