I like my bees like I like my women
piggsy
Registered Users Posts: 88 Big grins
covered in coffee! I'm pretty sure that's how that line goes.
Finally got around to processing the bee "swarm" pictures - and found they are apparently megachile nigrovittata leafcutter bees, or at least a pretty close likeness of them as far as I can tell. There were hundreds of them all in a big swarm coalescing around some grass stalks in an abandoned lot near a park, with some nomia bees I found later right next to them.
E-P5 / Tokina AT-X 90mm 2.5 / Raynox 150 & 250 separately
Have to say being this close to so many of them is a bit weird, they climb all over you, grass stalks behind you that were free of bees 5 minutes ago will be covered in them when you walk into it later, and they have a tendency to all drop off at once if they're disturbed and flop all over each other. Never got the impression they were cross with me - just this kind of frustrated "geez, this again?"
Came back and did some later night shots when they were calmer and less boiling-mass-of-bees and looked like a weirdo in a park at 1am.
E-P5 / Tokina AT-X 90mm 2.5 / Raynox 150 and 250 stacked.
Nomia bees. Just about gave up on these, very small examples even for them - Ive done them before with slightly bigger examples to work with, these ones are seriously getting to a point where there's really no way to do 'em easily without preplanning and a lot of focus stacking, heads are smaller than tiny grass seeds. And of course, none of the shots I took were done with focus stacking them in mind, but I managed to make it mostly work (eg you can sort of mostly ignore where there was nothing in focus to paint into a gap in there). These are at about 2.2x on the Tokina 90 and both the Raynox 150 and 250 stacked together. I can deal with it being small enough and dense enough in there to have to jiggle the flash diffuser positon around but the condiitons were such that the lens / raynox clip was often barging stuff out of the way and pushing them out of the frame - 12.8 diopters reduces the working distance quite some ways. Got really sick of stuff getting shadowed and ordered a second flash too
Finally got around to processing the bee "swarm" pictures - and found they are apparently megachile nigrovittata leafcutter bees, or at least a pretty close likeness of them as far as I can tell. There were hundreds of them all in a big swarm coalescing around some grass stalks in an abandoned lot near a park, with some nomia bees I found later right next to them.
E-P5 / Tokina AT-X 90mm 2.5 / Raynox 150 & 250 separately
Have to say being this close to so many of them is a bit weird, they climb all over you, grass stalks behind you that were free of bees 5 minutes ago will be covered in them when you walk into it later, and they have a tendency to all drop off at once if they're disturbed and flop all over each other. Never got the impression they were cross with me - just this kind of frustrated "geez, this again?"
Came back and did some later night shots when they were calmer and less boiling-mass-of-bees and looked like a weirdo in a park at 1am.E-P5 / Tokina AT-X 90mm 2.5 / Raynox 150 and 250 stacked.
Nomia bees. Just about gave up on these, very small examples even for them - Ive done them before with slightly bigger examples to work with, these ones are seriously getting to a point where there's really no way to do 'em easily without preplanning and a lot of focus stacking, heads are smaller than tiny grass seeds. And of course, none of the shots I took were done with focus stacking them in mind, but I managed to make it mostly work (eg you can sort of mostly ignore where there was nothing in focus to paint into a gap in there
). These are at about 2.2x on the Tokina 90 and both the Raynox 150 and 250 stacked together. I can deal with it being small enough and dense enough in there to have to jiggle the flash diffuser positon around but the condiitons were such that the lens / raynox clip was often barging stuff out of the way and pushing them out of the frame - 12.8 diopters reduces the working distance quite some ways. Got really sick of stuff getting shadowed and ordered a second flash too 0
Comments
Phil
Luck happens when preparation meets opportunity!
Brian V.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lordv/
http://www.lordv.smugmug.com/
Yes, the lack of working distance can easily give the problems you describe, so much that I have never used my Raynox. However, I find that long working distances can make framing difficult.
Harold
Thanks everyone
Some others pulled out from the pile, some others re-done. Kind of polishing a turd on the nomai bee ones but it nagged me
Actually what I'm more annoyed about was in discovering there were others that could have improved the leafcutter bee stacks but I had tossed out of the import pile early. Bridge too far to re-do those.
Yeah it's all just picking what you want to compromise I guess. Almost pulled the trigger on the Kiron/Dine 105 macro today as well - was looking at the Tamron 180 and Sigma 150 macros but they're pricier and I started wondering how long they actually are when you focus close (being internal focusing I'm guessing they focus breathe a fair bit?). I pretty much always take the Raynox 150 or 250 with me, I find they're usually plenty. On the Bokina 90 the 250 gets you something like 25 to 11mm width on the m43 sensor, 150 is 42mm to 17mm (so a tiny bit more than 1:1 basically), covers most bugs that would actually "need" need more than 1:2 RR. But... stacking them both together put the subject 4cm from the end of the diopter stack, which is getting quite annoyingly close for handheld / flash work. You don't wanna suddenly sneeze doing that with stuff that bites
My Kiron 105 gives 17.5mm wide at minimum focus (1:1 on full frame) at a working distance (no hood) of 130mm. (The working distance at 17.5mm FOV with my Printing Nikkor 150mm is 210mm, a bit more tricky to handle, mainly due to the weight, but it is 390mm at half that magnification).
Harold
Regarding your topic title:
I used to keep honeybees. I kept them in a wooden box, in a field.
Harold
Is that the serious business el-nikkor that goes for $$$$ these days? I have always meant to look into enlarging lenses (the mflenses.com guys have a m43/nex mount project for them I sometimes look at and fail to really understand) and I find it a very tangled web trying to understand which enlargers do or need what to work (reversing/light sealing/external apertures/external helicoids/etc). It seems like the kind of thing where I could spend a lot and end up with something I don't actually use or understand, you know?
Second flash arrived today. Forgot to actually order anything with it to split the cold shoe on the custombrackets thing I've been using. Anyone know a good friction arm setup for not a huge amount of money? A lot of people seem to like an old manfrotto unit that is apparently discontinued now and replaced by .. uhh .. various others. It's not like the more expensive manfrotto/etc units look bad or overpriced necessarily, just, I'm not sure how two of them cost as more than the Nissin i40 flash and two lots of 2550mAh nimh batteries ?
That's the one, not in your budget but you needn't pay those huge sums if you are patient. The problem is that it weighs 1050g. However, that less than the kit zoom for the latest Leica full-frame mirrorless!
Using enlarging lenses is simple. They were made for a short distance from the negative and a much longer one from the printing paper. Just turn the lens around. You need to get one with a variable aperture. Adaption is via the filter thread, and whichever thread step rings get you onto your tubes (M42 are the easiest option and M42 helicoids are available).
If you use large format lenses you will need an extension of 220mm plus, as with the Printing Nikkors. The reversed Schneider HM 40 I use, with a Kiron TC to overcome internal reflections, is a very compact 150mm, including lens, TC and adapter.
Harold
Guess you would be upset if someone with a lens tried to shoot you while you were sleeping
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Haha, although, I usually find they are pretty chill when they're waking up - I've never had one wake up and attack me, first priority is always to get away or get warm it seems.
The first one I got was this last year -
and I spend AGES looking around the neighbourhood for sleeping blue banded bees to get that. Was immensely pleased to have finally got some good shots of one - they're incredibly fast and usually only hit up a flower for a split second - these are the best two I've ever got of one in flight (although I stopped trying after a while and maybe now I have longer lenses it might work ... hmm
I've been looking for sleeping ones of those again lately - how I found those orange tails - but the blue bandeds and (similar) teddy bear bees are still quite annoying to chase down. I hit up my own yard late at night and go out looking for bugs at 4-430 or so just before it's light (oh queensland will I ever get used to your stubborn refusal to implement daylight savings?