A Favorite Bee

[Michael West]

A simple bee.

[pegelli]

A simple bee.

Nice bee, I like the diagonal composition and focus is very accurate.
Only I see some noise or jpg artifacts in the background, but a bit of PP should cure that easily when you want to make a bigger print.
Would you mind sharing any of the technical details, I learn a lot from how others aproach similar subjects that I shoot:

E.g. my bee from yesteday:

100 mm macro lens on Sony A700 set at MF around 1:2, f10, 1/125sec, handheld, pop-up flash with a homemade 'milk-carton' diffuser to bring the light near the end of the lens hood. Posted picture is ~ 2/3 of the original frame (hope you don't mind diluting your thread with another picture, if you do let me know and I'll remove it.

[wolfnowl]

A simple bee.

Ah, but bees aren't so simple!  Some of them are loners, and others have complex social structures.  Did you know that without pollination by bees, it's estimated 100,000 species of plants would disappear?

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The one on the left is a western honeybee.  The one on the right is an alfalfa leaf cutter bee.  They have small hairs on the underside of the abdomen that pick up pollen, hence the bright yellow.

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A 'sweat bee' (Halictus, sp.)

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Bumble bee.