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A Brief Overview of My Method After Several Years of Bee Photography

Started 8 months ago | Discussions thread
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AeroPhotographer Regular Member • Posts: 462
A Brief Overview of My Method After Several Years of Bee Photography
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I've shot bees with 90mm and 105mm macro lenses, and various telephoto lenses on extension tubes. Currently, my favorite is a Tamron 70-180mm lens on a 21mm extension tube. It has a maximum magnification of 0.43x. Telephoto lenses work better for me than macro lenses for two reasons:

  1. Greater working distance due to longer focal length results in less spooking of bees.
  2. Much faster autofocus. The Tam 70-180 is my fastest focusing telephoto lens.

My magnification is mostly in the range of 0.3x to 0.4x. I want more, but DOF drops like a rock with higher magnification. Also, the bees are spooked by my coming closer.

I've tried supplementary lenses like Raynox, but they have a narrower range of working distance (which will autofocus) than extension tubes.

I use naked flash. I've experimented with diffusers and not found one that works on live bees. To be effective, diffusers must surround the bee and that large a diffuser chases them away. I've also tried a ring flash, but the big ring at the end of the lens spooks the bees.

I like high flash power, comprising 90% of the light, to achieve effective 1/10,000 second exposure time. I briefly tried lower flash power in an attempt to reduce specular glare. But it didn't reduce glare and I encountered motion blur, so I returned to the high flash power.

I've tried many types of natural light, but only once was it equal or better than flash. That was a rare bright haze. Clear sunlight can look like flash but the longer effective exposure time and shadows make it inferior to flash.

Most recently I'm shooting bursts of about 4 or 5 frames. I set the flash manually at 1/8 power and my camera at ISO 160 and f11. If I continue the burst past 5 frames, the flash recovers after 3 or 4 dark frames and I get some more properly exposed frames.

I compose and focus while the bee has his mandibles buried in a blossom. I press the shutter as he withdraws. If I'm lucky, I get a frame or two in-focus with the mandibles visible.

I've tried many variations of flash and f-number but like the above best.

Regards,

Alan

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