Bumblebee on Sea Holly


Posted by Royce Howland on Wed Aug 06, 2014 1:33 pm

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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

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by PaiR on Wed Aug 06, 2014 7:21 pm
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I like how you bracketed the Bee with two more OOF blooms, Royce !!. The Bee is rendered plenty sharp. If anything a touch more frontal DOF for the thistle on which the bee is perched but as you say I prefer this trade off to background becoming more prominent.
Ram
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by Tom Whelan on Wed Aug 06, 2014 9:28 pm
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Lovely setting and DOF choice, fine selective focus on the bee. The play of the in and out of focus petal edges is pretty - I agree that stopping down creates visual clutter in a setting like this.

I have the same thought as Ram about the OOF front of the flower. At this aperture and angle, you need the bee in a different position, at the top of the flower, to get flower front and bee in focus.
Tom

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by Carol Clarke on Thu Aug 07, 2014 5:13 am
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The sea holly abstract is beautiful in its own right Royce, the bee is a bonus!
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by wtracyparnell on Thu Aug 07, 2014 8:48 am
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Others have already made some good suggestions but in any case the attractive perch makes this an enjoyable image.
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by Matthew Pugh on Thu Aug 07, 2014 9:24 am
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Hi

A fine image - the perch adds a nice graphical feel

All the best
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by Royce Howland on Thu Aug 07, 2014 11:37 am
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Thanks for the comments.

I also would have liked the core area of the bloom the bee is perching on fully sharp, which would further pop it out from the OOF background. I don't think shooting the bee in a different orientation to get it in the same plane of focus works as well; I have a few like that and don't prefer them. The focal plane is still quite shallow and the bee is not looking forward like this, because they almost always face inwards towards the pollen they're trying to collect. So I'm left with focus stacking to get this type of composition but with more DOF for the flower. In this case, the bee's own motion (fairly energetic) plus a very slight breeze meant the flower was moving around a fair amount in macro terms. So no focus stacking that time.

Since I've been looking over the photos I got from this session, I've thought perhaps I could gently pull one of the flower stems forward and secure it in place with a plamp. This would push the others further into the background, letting me blur them more if necessary. Plus it hopefully also would secure the perch enough that I could focus stack. I might give that plus the lighting a try.

I've heard some photographers talk about macro work as "slow" or "time consuming". I don't do this type of thing much, but I do enjoy it. I call it "absorbing", and getting something even halfway decent feels like a real accomplishment. :)
Royce Howland
 

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