Hovercraft
I’m becoming quite enamored of the little field across the street from my apartment. Mostly, for now at least, I’m interested in all the honey bees that are floating around the clover. I hope that they don’t cut it over the weekend. I’d like to explore it some more next week. I’ve seen a couple of ladybugs, too.
It’s quite a different perspective when getting on hands and knees, macro lens in hand and chasing bees. I’m not really worried about getting stung or anything. These bees are very docile and fun to be around. And ladybugs, well you can just pick them up, but they just tend to scamper away. I know that in time I’ll see other insects. There’s a whole world there!
I saw a rotted out tree with a lot of woodpecker holes in it. It will be interesting to see what’s in there. There’s a whole world within those few square yards.
I became interested in the field because of its proximity to the apartment. In other words, I could come home, change into shorts, walk across the street and see what I could see. I like the challenge of ‘seeing’ without going any place ‘special’. You should give it a try. There may be a whole world that you are missing.
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I’ve never done much macro work. Well, I amend that to ‘none.’ Did you hand-hold this image? If so, how in the world do you get the little beastie sharp in a limited DOF? Is it luck? Skill? Both?
@Chris: I love to do macro work. There’s so much interesting stuff to see at the level; however, this is not really a macro shot. It is a crop of a larger shot. I shot this with my Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8 lens, which is an incredibly sharp lens … and incredibly heavy. I never use this lens off-tripod. I can’t. I get too much shake and it doesn’t have VR.
The specs on this shot: 1/500 @ f/2.8 zoomed to 145mm. I love to shoot wide-open!
I followed the bee from flower to flower, used my 5 fps mode and when I got focused on him, I’d fire a burst of 2 or 3 shots. The following of the bee was done by loosening the ball head on the tripod and panning about. In this particular shot, the bee had landed, I took a couple of shots, then it took off and I continued to shoot. It’s a good way to capture anything in flight. I just love that high frame rate. Fortunately, the bee moved parallel to the film plane so he remained in focus. He was very cooperative bee!
Naturally, I got lots of shots that I didn’t keep, but those don’t matter at all! What matters is the one that didn’t get away!
Now, as the question: Skill or luck? I’ll just quote Arnold Palmer: “The more that I practice, the luckier I get.” Nuff said.
Understood. My wife owns a 40D and the frame rate there can be a real advantage. I’m not a sports shooter per se, but I took that camera to a baseball game last spring and was astounded at the way you could capture moments in sports much easier than I thought with a high FPS camera. That combined with autofocus probably changed sports photography in ways I can’t even imagine.
Great image.
It’s strange how the small world doesn’t get much respect.
It’s amazing what we can find in our back yards when we really take the time to check it out.
Nice one! Besides the main motive, I love the diagonal of clovers from front/left to back/right.
And I completely agree, sometimes it’s just very rewarding to focus on the small things in life…
Happy Easter holidays!
This little plot of land looks to be fertile ground in more ways than one. I love the light in this. Another terrific shot.
Last year, I did most of my shooting in my back yard. There was plenty to keep me busy. I still miss that yard, of course.