1709_0733 Honey Bee on Sunflower - a photo on Flickriver

1709_0733 Honey Bee on Sunflower

            At midday most insects are moving at top speed, so I didn't try to track this Honey Bee as it worked my row of sunflowers. Instead, I found a background composition I liked - more or less a stage - framed it in the viewfinder, then waited for the bee to arrive at the "right" place before releasing the shutter. Of course, not being sure precisely where that right place lay, I shot a lot with the bee at different locations on the flower. I try not to operate by rules, but if you were to draw two parallel lines through the frame at the 1/3 and 2/3 mark on both the vertical and horizontal axis, where those lines intersect is often a good place to put your subject. When the bee jitterbugged close to one of those imaginary intersections, it felt right. Not a rule, merely a design principle that often works. 

The other key design principle in this image is parallel lines reinforcing each other. The ragged little arc of disc floret buds at the bottom parallels the larger curve at the top where that part of the flower meets the golden ray florets. I was aware of this while setting up the shot. 

Other concerns were technical. Find the best combination of small f-stop (for depth of field) and shutter fast enough to freeze the bee's movement, without pushing the ISO too high and ending up with a lot of noise. (I ended up using noise reduction software in post processing.) And don't overexpose - the large dark area would feed incorrect exposure data to the meter, telling it to open up. So I compensated for that. Shooting RAW allowed me to do a further correction. Macro isn't easy, but I find it rewarding.

Photographed on my front lawn in Val Marie, Saskatchewan. Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission © 2017 James R. Page - all rights reserved.

Taken in: Canada / Saskatchewan / Val Marie (show map)

Taken on: September 9, 2017

Tags:

Honey Bee

Apis mellifera

female

worker

macro

pollen

flower

sunflower

beautiful

nature

orange

wild

prairie

Val Marie

Saskatchewan

Canada

copyrighted

James R. Page « less

Sets appears in: • Best 2017 • Insects & Arachnids more » • A Prairie Garden • But Is It Art? « less

Groups appears in: • Macro Photography • Your Best Photography more » • **E Ticket**(invited photos only) • Best Nature Shot Of The Day « less

Camera: Nikon D810, f/22.0, 1/250 sec, 180mm, ISO 1600 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Nikon D810
Lens:	105.0 mm f/2.8
Aperture:	f/22.0
Exposure Time:	0.004 sec (1/250)
Focal Length:	180mm
ISO:	1600
Exposure Bias:	-2/3 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Manual
Exposure Mode:	Manual
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Gain Control:	High gain up
Sharpness:	Hard
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Adobe Photoshop CS6 (Macintosh)
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