Green Sweat Bee

[Ken Childs]

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p193/kjchilds/BPN/IMG_1976.jpg

Canon EOS REBEL XT
Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro
Manual mode
1/640"
F8.0
Canon 430EX: On, Fired. Home made bounce card attached with flash in normal position.
ISO: 200
Photoshop CS3

We had more green sweat bees than ever here this past year. Normally I see a few during the heat of summer but there there were hundreds of at least 5 different species here during the fall.

[Allen Sparks]

Ken, I really like the strong focus on the head and being able to see the details in the eye and even hairs on the head. I also really like the background which I assume are the flower petals. nice work. Since you used full flash, you may have been able to narrow the aperture to increase DOF even more...of course you would have to be careful not to make your background too defined. I'm always wanting to go whole hog and use f16 with full flash but I really have to watch my background when I do that.

[Julie Kenward]

Ken, I really like it when someone has to tell me they used flash - excellent job here! I really don't see any spectral highlights or blow outs in the image so way to go!

I, too, love the head position and the DOF is really nice. You've got the FG as sharp as it can be with it gradually falling off towards the back. I'm wondering if the wings were really the warm red/brown or if they have a bit of a color cast on them because of the pink flower?

I really like these sweat bees because their antenna are short enough that you can really crop in close without losing half of them. Nice composition...it all works.

[Ken Childs]

Allen, I usually shoot bug macros at f10 or smaller aperture but it was windy and I needed a faster shutter speed to help keep the moving flowers in focus.

The bounce card aiming down really works well for this type of shot. The bugs get wrapped in light instead of a direct blast from just one direction. The wings did get a little color boost from the flower but this species has reddish brown wings so it wasn't that big of a boost.

Thanks for the comments. :)

[Anita Bower]

Excellent details on this little bee! Wow! Great colors and composition. As Jules wrote--excellent use of flash. All around great shot.