I have been busy on other things, but at the weekend despite the breezy conditions I had a go at taking some macro shots of bees in the garden.
Kit used was as in my previous post.
Unlike the Hoverflys were I had to sit and wait for them to get used to me and the camera, the bees took no notice. Just a matter of waiting for a bee to arrive on the selected flower. A big difference between hovers and bees though. Hovers were relatively slow in moving around a flower head, whereas the bees were really quick until they had buried their head in the stamens.
Manual focusing was the major issue in the breeze, and due to the speed of the bee moving around the frame.
With the camera on a tripod getting the bee head on a/f point to use the focus confirmation turned into a bit of wishful thinking. So despite using manual focus, and I don't think a/f screens are really suited to achieving critical manual focus without using the electronic rangefinder. This turned into an occasion where auto focus would have been of little help either. The attached shots are the best 3 of the 11 frames taken.
Probably the biggest issue is the very shallow depth of field, and due to the speed of subject movement there was no opportunity to use focus stacking.
Don
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07-09-10, 13:55
