First bee with Tokina 100mm lens - Original and Edit

Parker219 · Apr 2, 2014

This is testing a couple of things. First I JUST got this lens, and this is one of the first pics I have taken with it. I wanted to post the original straight out of the camera shot, then my crop and edit. On the edit I selected the bee and part of the flower and "smart sharpened" it in photoshop quite a bit, so I wanted to see if sharpening artifacts are seen after I upload it. Also you can see how much I cropped it, so lets see how the D5300 holds up to cropping.

Original- straight out of the camera-

Edit-

sm4him · Apr 2, 2014

Well, *I* don't see any, but with my vision, I rarely do unless it's pretty horrendous.

It's a nice shot; well-exposed and a good composition. But if that's the 100mm macro lens, why not come in closer and get a true macro shot? Of course, I'll admit, MY first shots with it were about the same. I think I was kind of scared of really getting in close at first, but once I saw what that lens was really capable of, I was addicted.
That Tokina is one of my favorite lenses in my bag--I've been thinking I need to pull it out again with all the flowers coming out now, and the insects I've started to see the last few days.

Parker219 · Apr 2, 2014

Why not get closer? Because the bee was flying from flower to flower and didn't stay still for me. I asked him to pose, but he didn't want to I guess. haha

Plus, when I got close to a flower and waited for him, he seemed to be scared of me, so of course he didn't land on that one. I will definitely keep trying though.

I am learning macro can be very fun and very frustrating, because of the DOF, too little and you get too small of area in focus, this was f7.1, which turned out pretty good I think.

Parker219 · Apr 2, 2014

When are you guys using 2.8 for macro? Seems the DOF is VERY small when doing that. What do you guys normally use for bees/butterflies/insects?

Parker219 · Apr 3, 2014

The shutter speed on this was 1/2500, iso 800, f 6.3.

What do I need to change do get the bee sharper?

Parker219 · Apr 3, 2014

Why does the thumbnail look green, but then if you click on it, the pic looks normal?

Braineack · Apr 3, 2014

you simply missed the focus on the bee. Looks like you hit the stamin behind the bee.

Parker219 · Apr 3, 2014

Oh ok, couldn't tell if it was motion blur or missed focus. 1/2500 sound about right for shutter speed for this type of thing?

Parker219 · Apr 3, 2014

They are a lot easier when they are not flying! haha

Parker219 · Apr 3, 2014

I don't know if this is a baby bee or or different species, but it was small.

Derrel · Apr 3, 2014

The bee atop the flower in Post #9...now THAT'S WHAT nailing the focus looks like! You can see the individual hairs on the back!!

sm4him · Apr 3, 2014

Parker219 said:
When are you guys using 2.8 for macro? Seems the DOF is VERY small when doing that. What do you guys normally use for bees/butterflies/insects?

I'd say I almost *never* use f/2.8 on my macro, and especially not for insects. For insects, I'm more likely to shoot somewhere between f/11 and f/16, even up to f/22, with OCF. Otherwise, you just don't get enough of the insect in focus.
This one was shot at f/25. It also helped that this was a side view, so it was easier to keep the whole insect in focus:

THIS one was shot at f/22 and even at that, look at how small the actual area in focus is (and this is an INCREDIBLY TINY insect, some kind of larva or pupa stage of something):

Now, with stationary objects, flowers and the like, I'll open the aperture up more and play around. I still USUALLY don't have below about f/8, but sometimes I'll go lower. This one for instance, was shot a f/5.6:
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Even on this, where I was trying to get a razor-think DOF, I was at f/5.3:

I think the only time I've used my Tokina at f/2.8 is for portraits. And I don't actually USE it much for that.

Parker219 · Apr 3, 2014

Derrel said:
The bee atop the flower in Post #9...now THAT'S WHAT nailing the focus looks like! You can see the individual hairs on the back!!

Thank you sir. I took 96 pictures and had 3 keepers.

Parker219 · Apr 9, 2014

Ok, so since getting a bee in mid flight is very hard, I am trying to catch them RIGHT before they land or RIGHT when they take off. Let me know what you think or if you have any tips.

Thank you