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Time for some bees

During the recent warm weather, I figured it would be nice to get out there and take some bee shots.  This also gave me a chance to work with my 180mm macro, which has lately been ignored in favor of the MP-E 65.  While the MP-E 65 is an amazing lens, for things like bees the 180L is far more appropriate.

I had hoped to catch a bee in flight, but alas the only shots I got were too OOF.  I could have probably made my life easier by not trying to get the shot at 1:1, but then it wouldn’t have looked as interesting!  From past experience, I have found it’s better to try to take an amazing shot and fail than to take several mediocre shots.

Of course, I did want to come back with something for my efforts so I did take a number of shots of bees on the flowers.

I photographed in three different locations that day.

1) In my front yard (shortly before mowing) where bees were frequenting a number of flowers in the yard.

2) At Bellevue Botanical Gardens

3) In a bush by my house, where tons of bees were flying.

Interestingly, the third location was where I had the best luck getting shots, though I only had a few minutes to shoot there because we had guests over.

Interestingly, all four bees in this blog are of different species.  I also saw several other species whose photos I was not able to get.  I think I will have to spend some time reading up on bees in the near future, as admittedly I know very little about them.

The following are some tips I made use of.

1) As always, I highly recommend the use of a flash.  For some situations, I did meter for the ambient light but kept the flash for fill.

2) Don’t jump from place to place.  Find a small area that bees seem to frequent and wait for a bee to come to you.

3) While foraging, bees don’t seem to mind me.  I don’t think I would want to get too close to their nest, but while pollinating flowers they could really care less if you get close to photograph.

4) Pick your flowers carefully.  Make sure when a bee does come to you, that it is on a flower that is easy to photograph and that provides a good view.  You can do this by staying near a group of flowers that you know will provide this.

5) Longer focal lengths work better here.

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Tags: bee, insect, macro, photography