DPReview.com is closing April 10th - Find out more

Spring in Australia

Started 4 months ago | Photos
macrouser
macrouser Senior Member • Posts: 3,979
Spring in Australia
6

Spring is almost over and it is a great time for wild life/macro photography.

I had noticed there was a solitary native bee in my portulaca flowers.

I used a Sigma 150 mm macro lens with a 2X converter plus a NISI lens on the front.  It requires a lens converter to use on my camera.  I have to use a tripod with this because it is so heavy and long.  The magnification is so high that the depth of field is very shallow at the closest distance.

I use a walk stool to sit on to save my legs some.

The bee is about 3mm long.  She puts the pollen on special hairs  on her belly.

It is to bad the head was hidden but this shows the pollen on her belly.

As I was sitting there, a large hover fly landed on one of the flowers.

This fly was only a dark speck on the flower petal.

It would go in and get one pollen and bring it back out to eat.

The white cabbage butterfly landed about 15 cm in front of the camera lens.

This is all I could fit in the frame.

This very small hover fly landed just under the camera.  I had a hard time pointing the lens down at it.

It was windy and insanely  difficult to get the focus perfect.  The fly is so small and the depth of field so shallow that I could not get all the fly in focus at once.

 macrouser's gear list:macrouser's gear list
Sony SLT-A77 Sony a7R III Sigma 150mm F2.8 EX DG Macro HSM Sony FE 90mm F2.8 macro Sony FE 70-300mm F4.5-5.6 G OSS +2 more
richj20 Forum Pro • Posts: 10,181
Re: Spring in Australia

macrouser wrote:

Spring is almost over and it is a great time for wild life/macro photography.

A nice find! I've seen bees in the inner parts of our common Bird of Paradise flowers in So. California. It's always interesting to watch little critters seeking out nectar/pollen.

I had noticed there was a solitary native bee in my portulaca flowers.

As I was sitting there, a large hover fly landed on one of the flowers.

-- hide signature --
Deadfisheye
Deadfisheye Regular Member • Posts: 435
Re: Spring in Australia

yes. some lovely pics. Finally some sun in NSW, so these creatures are out and about where I am

 Deadfisheye's gear list:Deadfisheye's gear list
Panasonic Lumix DC-GX9 Olympus E-M5 III Sony a7C Panasonic Lumix G Vario 100-300mm F4-5.6 OIS Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 60mm F2.8 Macro +7 more
Keyboard shortcuts:
FForum MMy threads