Busy as a Bee


This bee photo was taken at June Blake's Garden which is a hive of insect activity for photographers who favor closeup photography.  The garden is open to the public Wednesday to Sunday, from late spring into the Autumn months.  It is located in Tinode in Wicklow and is just off the N81. A warm welcome is provided by June or other family members.  The day I took this photo I left with a bunch of beautifully scented sweet pea!

This was my favorite shot from the day, I liked the colour tones of the flower and the bee which was thankfully reasonably sharp.  A shutter speed of 1/2000 sec was chosen to try freeze the active bee, an aperture of f9 was used resulting in an ISO of 1000.  I personally sacrifice ISO over other settings in nature photography and use Topaz DeNoise to remove noise generated with a higher ISO.  

Traditionally I favored a 100mm macro lens for these types of shots but more recently I have been experimenting with my EF 100-400mm lens with a 1.4x extender on my Canon R6 (using an adapter).  The benefit is that I am not swapping lenses when switching from bird to insect however the zoom lens is a lot heavier to hold!  This shot was taken at 560mm (100-400 plus 1.4 extender).  

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