Pollinator

[Colin Driscoll]

A Blue-banded Bee (Amegilla sp. native to Australia) doing a nice job of pollinating my tomatoes. Getting a lovely crop thanks to these guys. Also the first post from my new 7D!

7D, 100mm macro L IS USM, 1/2500, f6.3, manual exp iso400 fill flash.

I could remove the dark patch in the LL but decided to leave it because I thought it added some depth. Thoughts?

[Marcin Biskupek]

I got question. Did u use tripod or u caught it so sharp from hand??

[Colin Driscoll]

By hand Marcin. These bees fly very fast and erratically. It would be impossible to use a tripod. I had many failures!!

[Marcin Biskupek]

By hand Marcin. These bees fly very fast and erratically. It would be impossible to use a tripod. I had many failures!!

There is a type of add-on mounted at hot shoe with infrared beam that clicks when something break the beam line and then tripod can be pretty useful.
But congratz for making it the clasic way, i like the picture.

[Ken Childs]

Hey Colin, this is an excellent capture of an extremely cool looking bee! I love those blue bands! If this were mine, I'd definitely get rid of those dark areas in the LL....I don't think they really add anything to this shot. I would also crop a tiny sliver off the bottom and a small amount from the top.

Very well done! :cheers:

[Dave Leroy]

The blue bands are pretty neat.

Lovely shot and I like the ss. Well done.

I would also lose the dark areas. On my monitor it looks like a bit of halo around the bee. Not sure what it would be from.

If cropping I might look at a bit off top.

Good for you.

Dave

[bhavya joshi]

hey colin,

:cheers:good capture.. Clean flowers and bee. I really like it.. otherwise these bees you know,
difficult to capture.. nice timing..

[Jerry van Dijk]

Hi Colin, that is one neat bee and one neat shot! I would also lose some of the empty space at the top. I don't mind the dark spots too much, as you say they add a little sense of depth. Then again, so do the OOF parts of the tomato flowers. I would add a little canvas at the bottom, to creat a little more space between the flower and the edge of the frame.

[Chris Korman]

Interesting moment captured, did you do a burst of frames? Since this is a square crop, have you experimented with shifting the cropping box down a bit so that there is a little less empty space above, say half an inch down. I also would wonder what this look like with a warmer toned white balance since to play to our emotions, when we think bees we think honey, and honey has a golden yellow color.

[Colin Driscoll]

Thanks for all the comments. I have cropped some from the top and added canvas to the bottom, maybe there was a slight halo around the rear end of the bee so I have smoothed that out (the bg is blotchy so I think that's where it came from). I've put the revised version on my website for those interested (sorry, didn't have the time to do a repost):
http://MyPikkies.zenfolio.com/p250384024/e2fd7930d

Chris, nice idea about the honey association but didn't really work when I tried it, just altered the natural color of the bee.

[Jerry van Dijk]

Hi Colin, repost looks great!

[Colin Driscoll]

Interesting moment captured, did you do a burst of frames?

Not for this one, just a lucky shot. I did try burst several times but the critter moves so fast that there was little time for that.

[Oscar Vazquez-Ortiz]

A Blue-banded Bee (Amegilla sp. native to Australia) doing a nice job of pollinating my tomatoes. Getting a lovely crop thanks to these guys. Also the first post from my new 7D!

7D, 100mm macro L IS USM, 1/2500, f6.3, manual exp iso400 fill flash.

I could remove the dark patch in the LL but decided to leave it because I thought it added some depth. Thoughts?


l like how the out of focus leaves and flowers keep bringing my attention back to the bee.

Nice!

[Brendan Dozier]

Real nice capture Colin! Nice comp and detail on this, repost looks great.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Colin,
Been traveling so a bit late.......I think the repost made all the corrections from the suggestions.....so nicely done there. I have a question for you ......did you have the flash set to high speed sync? If not, the camera defualts to 1/250 sec. or 1/300.......so going to manual flash and say 1/16 or 1/32 power may give you sharper wings if that is something you are looking for. Just something to experiment with!

[Colin Driscoll]

Thanks Roman. Yes it was on HSS. Not sure how I would have avoided ghosting with strong ambient light. Then there is the conflict between fixed detail and enough blur to show action.