Bumble bee

[Thomas Barbin]

Canon 7D mark ii, Canon 65mm MP-E 1-5X f/2.8,
1/250 | f/8 | ISO 640

An inactive Bumble bee shot handheld while it was on a daisy. This was shot at 5X magnification and is a single image. I'm really looking forward to shooting more of these bees at high magnification this spring when they return, so any advice would be great! I personally wish the antennae didn't block the eye and that there wasn't as noticeable of a hotspot on the eye. I think I will try shooting at a smaller aperture in the future for more depth of field.

Cheers,
Thomas

[Jerry van Dijk]

This works very nice as an abstract nature image. I like it! I was watching this on my iPad, which cut off the right hand side, which actually worked ver nice composition-wise. Try a completely square crop from the left hand side and see how you like it.

[Steve Maxson]

Very good sharpness within the narrow DOF this lens provides and the lighting is nicely diffused! I'm impressed that you were able to shoot this hand held! I might wish that the OOF antenna wasn't covering part of the eye - which for me is the most interesting part of the image. If you shoot at a higher f/stop with this lens at 5x, diffraction becomes an issue and you will lose sharpness - just something to keep in mind going forward.

[Thomas Barbin]

Thanks for the suggestion Jerry, I'll try a square crop and see how I like it.

Thomas

[Thomas Barbin]

The antenna is my least favourite part of the image too, I've tried similar shots just to the left on other bees to avoid the antenna, but the roundness of the eyes are more apparent from the side and just look too out of focus. Thank you for the tip about diffraction, I haven't experimented much with apertures on this lens so that is good to know!

Thomas