Chasing Bees

kundalini · Apr 30, 2011

Practice and luck go hand-in-hand to get good shots of fast moving critters. I'm out of practice and luck was laughing at me yesterday, but I'm posting these anyway as a motivator for me to get back on track.

These were shot using a D300 with 105mm f/2.8 lens and manual focusing.

I tried using a flash to begin with just to see if it would work.
SB800 in TTL, f/6.3, 1/250s, ISO200

No flash, f/3.2, 1/8000s, ISO800

Comments appreciated. Thanks for looking.

Marc-Etienne · Apr 30, 2011

Very tricky what you've done! I like #1 better. The blurred wings clearly shows a fast moving subject and the background and angle to the subjects are more appealing to me. My only down point about #1 would be the blown out back, but outside that, well done. Probably took you several hundreds of shots to get couple good one.

Derrel · Apr 30, 2011

I'm not a fan of #1...I think TTL exposure control is maybe not the best way to approach bees up close...manually-selected, fractional power like 1/16 to 1/32 power will give you much briefer flash duration. With TTL control, it's pretty hard to predict how long the flash duration will be; in the case of the TTYL shot above, the flash duration seems quite slow, judging by the wing blur. I'd be tempted to go with a moderate ISO level (400,500,640) and a smaller f/stop, to darken the background, and then allowing the flash to illuminate only the closest part of the shot. I think the problem with TTL exposure control is that the bee's body is so,so small in relation to the whole scene, that the TTL system will over-expose the bee quite a lot, in an effort to get the backdrop into the proper exposure zone.

Derrel · Apr 30, 2011

Coming back to this post later in the afternoon, I thought I might add a comment, Namely, that manually-selected flash f/stops can be quickly and easily correlated with the magnification ratio scale on many macro lenses, like the Sigma 180mm f/3.5 EX HSM Macro lens; as long as the flash is held in the same position, the proper f/stop at each magnification ratio can be easily figured out for those low-power, ultra-short duration flash squirts. Why would anybody wish to shoot this way? Well, first off, having the lens pre-focused for a certain magnification size allows you to simply lean over and move the camera to the proper focused distance...the camera is in manual focus, the lens is set to a certain f/stop, and the flash is set to a fractional power that corresponds to the right f/stop. Within the normal working distance you've selected, you should be able to keep the exposure within a half to three-fourths of an f/stop of dead-on. Focusing by moving the camera closer or farther from the subject is actually relatively easy in the good, bright light of spring and summer.

kundalini · May 1, 2011

Thanks Derrel. As usual, some good tech info to chew on.

I decided to slap on the 300mm f/4, which I haven't pulled out for a while, and forgo the flash. These shots were mostly as an exercise in technique.

All shots taken at f/4, 1/8000s, ISO200