How the heck do you take bee photos? (no pic)

[Knut]

Thanks Francis..

I don't think I'll have to worry much about that.. I'm such a
chicken.. )

Jody,
Don't let Frances scare you.

His statements about bees are perfectly correct, but the fact is that a bee never stings unless severely provoked or in the neighborhood of its hive, which it defends vehemently. Why? As Frances said, it loses its stinger and that means it's going to die, so it avoids stinging if it can, that means it flies away. Only if you catch it, squeeze it or are nasty in other ways it will defend itself. They are normally very humble creatures, but in the south of U.S. there are those bastards called killer bee, but their behavior is not normal. Unless you live there you never need to be afraid of bees.
So go on practise with your camera and don't be afraid!
/ Knut

 

[cdreid]

a Lot of luck!

(wish i'd been able to zoom in time)

http://www.fototime.com/ {9C2FA849-38E6-11D5-9E23-00A0D21736ED} picture.JPG

There are tons of bumbles on my azaleas.. and my kids tell me they
won't sting.. but when I go near.. they swarm me.. yipes.. How the
heck do you get a photo of them???

very big telephoto??? ;-)

 

[cdreid]

Fantastic picture!

I used my 70-200mm at full zoom. Sat back maybe 3' from the
lavender. Basically I would look for a bee coming to the first set
of flowers, then focus on him.

I took some shots of them climbing around on the plants, but what I
really wanted was mid-air. (BTW the bees had no interest in me.)

So I waited for any sense of movement from the bee, then fired.
They are faster than you think when zoomed in like this.

Like others said, take lots of shots. About half of mine had no
bee in them because they were faster than me.

(Notice you can't see the wings even though the shot was at 1/750th).

That works well and the telephoto has the added benefit of the
"portrait" effect with a nice clean background. I've been
experimenting with a Mead ETX at 1200mm with the D30 for similar
reasons, but the best bee images are probably made with different
equipment. It's really tough with an SLR to get close enough to get
the super fine detail. That's one of the reasons I've tried the
Meade with my D30 - to try to get similar results like I can easily
get with my CP950's and CP990. This is a fairly typical shot with
the 990.



Lin

 

[Steve Mason]

the super fine detail. That's one of the reasons I've tried the
Meade with my D30 - to try to get similar results like I can easily
get with my CP950's and CP990. This is a fairly typical shot with
the 990.

Wow, that's a great shot!

Pretty good dof for so close. I find I can't get an entire bee, or fly, or mosquito in focus with my 950.

 

[Lin Evans]

the super fine detail. That's one of the reasons I've tried the
Meade with my D30 - to try to get similar results like I can easily
get with my CP950's and CP990. This is a fairly typical shot with
the 990.

Wow, that's a great shot!
Pretty good dof for so close. I find I can't get an entire bee, or
fly, or mosquito in focus with my 950.

Steve,

There's a bit of a range on the yellow/green macro "flower" on your 950 - back off a bit from the full telephoto end while keeping it in the green range and then back off a little on the bee and you should get some pretty great detail and reasonable depth of field. Here's a CP950 shot which is similar, but has some DOF.



Lin

 

[Lin Evans]

Lin:

That shot is amazing. What a bee must look like to another bee!
Well if they had eyes like ours anyway.

You say this was with a 990 or 950? What, just max zoom? How close
were you to the bee?

Bob

Hi Bob,

This one was with the CP990 - below in the answer to a post is one with the 950. The 950 and 990 have a "macro" setting which lets you shoot not only macros, but all the way to infinity. The camera will focus as close as .8 inch and this shot was taken at somewhere around an inch from the bee.

Lin

 

[Lin Evans]

Fantastic picture!

Thanks Charles, but all I do is snap the shutter - the bees do all the hard work Actually, it's pretty easy to get great macros with the 950 or 990 Nikons.

Lin

 

[Mike.]

Take your time, I spent over 4 hours around our apple tree waiting and taking LOTS of photos. Selecting a few to publish to my (now non-exisitent) photopoint album.

I didnt have a problem with the bees swarming over me, perhaps leaving out perfume/deodorants etc may help?

-Mike.



S10 - Pentax 5.5x Loupe.

-Mike.

There are tons of bumbles on my azaleas.. and my kids tell me they
won't sting.. but when I go near.. they swarm me.. yipes.. How the
heck do you get a photo of them???

very big telephoto??? ;-)

 

[Lin Evans]

Take your time, I spent over 4 hours around our apple tree waiting
and taking LOTS of photos. Selecting a few to publish to my (now
non-exisitent) photopoint album.
I didnt have a problem with the bees swarming over me, perhaps
leaving out perfume/deodorants etc may help?

-Mike.



S10 - Pentax 5.5x Loupe.

-Mike.

Beautiful shot Mike, the loupe is helpful and the S10 works great with it.

Lin

 

[Frances]

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1007&page=1&message=1049453

There are tons of bumbles on my azaleas.. and my kids tell me they
won't sting.. but when I go near.. they swarm me.. yipes.. How the
heck do you get a photo of them???

very big telephoto??? ;-)

Hi Jody,
Actually, sometimes a really big telephoto can help, but heed the
advice about no perfume, no deodeant, no brightly colored clothing.
The next thing is to have lots of patience. Wait for the bee at a
good looking flower rather than chasing it around. Have your camera
set up for the shot and take lots of shots.

I find earlier in the mid-morning to be one of the best times. The
air is clear, and the bees are quite intent on starting their
collecting duties. Face the sun so that your lens isn't shadowed
and again, take lots of shots. You will get your share of good
ones.

Lin

 

[uKuederli]

You have to possibilities: use a tele or a macro... the tele is the saver and easier way, because you won't disturb the bees... but for the real astonishing shots you need a macro! The posted photo is something in between, but first I was for the flower, then the bee just apeared and I really loved the sexy shorts...





Regards
Urs

There are tons of bumbles on my azaleas.. and my kids tell me they
won't sting.. but when I go near.. they swarm me.. yipes.. How the
heck do you get a photo of them???

very big telephoto??? ;-)

 

[Zion Mizrahi]

Bee Bee bebebe beebee beeb beebeebeebee bee bee.

 

[Jay]

but it is a bug, it can fly and it is on a flower. This bug landed on the flower as I was taking the picture.



I love your posts..specially your daughter putting on skates.

-Jay

There are tons of bumbles on my azaleas.. and my kids tell me they
won't sting.. but when I go near.. they swarm me.. yipes.. How the
heck do you get a photo of them???

very big telephoto??? ;-)