2nd attempt at a bee

[SashaT]

So I took the feedback given to me in my last thread and I tried again. Any improvement over my last attempt? What else should I be working on?



Thank you.

 

[Overread]

Lovely shot of a bee - good exposure, good depth of field and a very interesting sight with the bee washing herself (assumed because she seems to have both front legs up and rubbing on the facial area) a bit whilst covered in pollen. Composition wise you might consider cropping a little off the top

 

[Derrel]

Focus might be a tiny bit off...just the slightest bit. Maybe a bit more sharpening with Unsharp Mask would improve the look of the shot. I clicked on it, then clicked again,and let the largest size load...it's quite a sight you managed to capture. I'm not an expert, but the little round balls seem really large for pollen...but I guess that's what they must be, little balls of pollen. Pretty cool, really, to be able to see such a sight. I did not see your first shot, so cannot comment on improvement or not, but I did enjoy seeing this photo--enough to write out a reply.

 

[Overread]

Hmm tricky, the bee appears to have a lot of hairs around and upon its eye; its a feature some bee species have and that (in my experience) most (if not all) moths and butterflies have. It makes focusing right on the eye a really difficult thing because it can appear blurry even if the eye is in focus because the hairs mess up the view.

Having looked at the larger version I can see that slight softer hint around the eye that I think Derrel is seeing as well. It is very slight and the hairs might be well partly causing it. A touch more sharpening might well help resolve the issue.

 

[SashaT]

Thanks all! Yes the balls are pollen and as far as the first shots; they were the bee shots I took the other day in the "Direct feedback" thread I posted. I will mess with the sharpness here in a bit to see what I can come up with. Actually it will probably wait until tomorrow as I have something to do in a little while. I did crop it a little as suggested, I also resized the copy and uploaded it to one of my photobucket accounts.

 

[Judobreaker]

Nice nice, loads of improvement here.

Most of the 'issues' have already been addressed. I'd just like to add that I'd also prefer some more space on the left of the image... The bee is now looking out of the frame.
You could also keep the frame the same size and just move the bee to the right a bit to fix that. ^^

 

[shaylou]

The focus is a little soft but I have no idea how to get it really sharp with these guys. They move a lot making it a hard shot to pull off. Nicely done sir.

 

[SashaT]

Well I didn't want to wait till tomorrow to play with the photo, I sharpened it up some more with ViewNx (I do not currently have photoshop, gimp etc.) and I changed the cropping a bit. The reason the bee is to the left is I had to crop out part of a flower that was in the original image. I had followed these bees around for a couple of hours before I got this, then when I looked part of a flower had blown into the frame from the wind as I snapped the shot. Thank you all again for all of the feedback, it is a big help for me

 

[shahriarbd]

Awesome

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[SashaT]

Awesome

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Thanks.