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Busy Bee Still having Lunch
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Busy Bee Still having Lunch



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Planting Fields Arboretum, Oyster Bay, New York.

Planting Fields Arboretum, Oyster Bay, New York.
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cameraNIKON Z 6

settings Aperture f/5.6 ISO 100 Shutter 1/400 Focal Length 3000/10 

locationOyster Bay, New York, US

upload_dateOct, 2020

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4 Comments |
ValerieAHagler
 
ValerieAHagler November 08, 2020
Love
Daretodream
 
Daretodream December 09, 2020
Beautiful!
Pjerry
 
Pjerry December 25, 2020
I'm sorry. Your capture is not eligible for the November 2020 Collection challenge. It must be published in November 2020 (see timestamp!). Please post another capture that meets the rules.
ivatrocke PRO+
 
ivatrocke June 30, 2022
Beautiful capture!

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Tags

#bee #Honey Bee #bumblebee #plant #purple
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Behind The Lens

Location

The Planting Fields Arboretum State Historic Park, Oyster Bay, New York, US. After entering the park off to the left is a 25 ft square walkway. There is a open roof on one side of the square with benches. There are plants inside the square and around the outside of the walkway. The picture was taken along the walkway under the roof.

Time

I arrived at the covered area of the walkway around 12:35 PM and spotted the bee. My kit was all packed, I've been trying to get an acceptable bee photograph for decades with no success. Frantically I assembled my kit, got as close as I could from the correct angle, composed and started shooting. The shot was taken around 12:42 PM. I shot as long as the bee was in my field of vision.

Lighting

The sun was overhead and to the left of the composition. I angled so the sun did not cast any shadows and the subject had an evenly lit area with which I could get a good bokeh effect.

Equipment

The picture was taken with a Nikon Z6, FTZ adapter, AF-S Nikkor 28-300mm 1 :3.5-5.6 G lens, Arsenal Remote V1, iPhone 7 Plus running the Arsenal App and a Peak Design compact tripod.

Inspiration

I've chased bees and butterflies for decades. I got hundreds of butterflies, but only a handful of bees, none of which I really liked. So, when I saw the bee, I knew I had another chance to get a bee photograph. On this day, I got at least three images of this bee that I liked. However, even being as close as I could get, using my longest lens and a full frame image, the bee was a tiny portion of the image. I was shooting maximum resolution: RAW and jpg pairs. As I shot the photos, I was concerned how small the bee was in the image, but I could not do anything about it, so I shot what I could.

Editing

Yes, I used Photoshop to make a number of changes. I took a 6048 x 4024 image and cropped it to a 600 x 400 image, roughly 16: 10. Approximately 10% of each original dimension. I literally decimated the image. Yet, the quality of the image was good enough to yield a decent image. Next, I masked the bee out to work on the background, I darkened it and increased the contrast. Then I lightened the bee and changed the contrast. I finished the editing by sharpening the image and a small contrast change.

In my camera bag

I normally have my Nikon Z6 II (I took advantage of the Nikon Z6 II trade-up offer), FTZ adapter, AF-S Nikkor 28-300mm 1 :3.5-5.6 G lens, AF MICRO NIKKOR 60mm 1 :2.8 D, NIKKOR Z 24-200mm 1 :4-6.3 VR, Nikon SB910, Arsenal V1, 2 different MAGMOD light modifiers, MAG MOD color lenses, MAG MOD flash adapter, Godox X1 T, Godox X1 R, 2 Lume Cube LC-V2, 67mm Variable ND filter, 67mm Circular Polarizer filter, 12 charged AA 2450 mAh rechargeable batteries, 2 EN-EL 15c rechargeable batteries, Lens Pen, Liquid lens cleaner, microfiber cloth, 3 QXD Sony 120GB cards, 1 Sandisk cfExpress 128GB card, 1 Sony E 256GB SDXC II, 3 Lexar SDXC II 1667 Cards and a Peak Design compact tripod.

Feedback

I won't deal with more than one bee at a time and it has to be in front of me. After that you have to consider the lighting and background. Try to use a wide open aperture setting. It is a difficult situation, you have low DOF so the bee has to be focused spot on, and you want to get nice bokeh. If all those factors are good, go for it. Shoot in RAW and jpg pairs, low ISO, high resolution, don't compose to tight around the bee (you may have to follow its erratic movement and you do not want to lose the shot because you were to tight on the bee), Tripod if you can. Once the bee settles down near a flower, shoot image after image until the bee moves, you don't know what you will get till you look at the pictures later. If the bee is still in your area, reacquire the bee and repeat. To finish the capture, you will have to do the post-processing in your "style" to give it your "interpretation".

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