|
First unread post | | 7 posts | | Page 1 of 1 |
As I'm sure we all know, bee populations have been collapsing in recent years, and this has been evident in our home garden as well, here in Calgary. This year bee numbers have rebounded a little, which I hope is encouraging. The native bumble bees seem to really like this type of sea holly; I’ve seen more bees on the small clump of spikey flowers at one time than I’ve seen in the entire garden in past years. At one point this past week there were about 30 bees working the garden. A small number, still, but far higher than 2 years ago when I counted maybe half a dozen at any one time.
I enjoy watching them, almost like some form of ballet mixed with pragmatic productivity and the occasional skirmish. On a warm summer day with flowers in bloom I could spend hours watching the different species work through their more or less favourite blooms. They’re more industrious than I am. This is an available light shot on a cloudy day. The spikey blooms of the sea holly create a pretty chaotic visual mix, like a pile of pickup sticks. I used a relatively shallow depth of field to try to isolate the bee itself; f/8 on a medium format rig at this close distance is very shallow indeed. (Of course, that makes manual focus a challenge with moving subjects.) I also did a little corner blurring & vignetting in post to help isolate the focal area around the main subject. For depth of field, f/11 or f/16 really would be better to more fully include the bee's eyes and head at a minimum. But stopping down more will only sharpen the chaos of the plants. So to keep the separation, I think I'd like to repeat this type of setup but darken the ambient exposure and use a bit of fill light to bring up the subject in front. A larger version can be seen by clicking this link: http://500px.com/photo/78884085/i-shoul ... ce-howland All comments & critiques are welcomed. Gear: Pentax 645Z, A 645 120mm f/4 + 1.4X teleconverter (~131mm equiv.), tripod. Exposure: Manual focus, manual exposure, 1/250s @ f/8, ISO 800. Processing: RAW conversion in Adobe Camera Raw. Finishing in Photoshop CC: crop to 4x5 aspect ratio (93% of full frame); basic S curve adjustment; selective noise reduction with Topaz Labs DeNoise filter; selective local contrast enhancement & sharpening with Topaz Labs Detail filter; Magic Bullet PhotoLooks spot focus filter; additional grain; slight warming filter. Royce Howland
|
|
|
by PaiR
on Wed Aug 06, 2014 7:21 pm
|
Posts: 2300
Joined: 1 Jul 2006 Location: Milwaukee |
||
|
by Tom Whelan
on Wed Aug 06, 2014 9:28 pm
|
Posts: 30152
Joined: 21 Aug 2003 Location: Lexington, MA Member #:00293 |
||
|
by Carol Clarke
on Thu Aug 07, 2014 5:13 am
|
Posts: 73267
Joined: 22 Aug 2003 Location: Lincolnshire, UK. In tune with Nature. Member #:00067 |
||
|
by wtracyparnell
on Thu Aug 07, 2014 8:48 am
|
Posts: 4368
Joined: 11 Jun 2012 Location: Western New York |
||
|
by Matthew Pugh
on Thu Aug 07, 2014 9:24 am
|
Posts: 38059
Joined: 1 Apr 2004 Location: Kent UK Member #:00345 |
||
|
by Royce Howland
on Thu Aug 07, 2014 11:37 am
|
Posts: 11719
Joined: 12 Jan 2005 Location: Calgary, Alberta Member #:00460 |
||
|
7 posts | | Page 1 of 1 |