Bee

I have been trying all week to capture the bees at work. Please give

opinion on this and how I could improve. Thanks. Gareth.

A bumble bee on a bunch of blue flowers before a blurred green background. The bb is in a vertical position right of the centre, vertically in the middel. Light, I presume sunlight is comming from the left top, somewhat from behind.

The green background is framing the core of the photo. It is of bright colour and has some distracting lightness detail in it. I'd recommend a tighter crop. Without the framing the viewer is more directly involved.

The photo suffers from two technical problems: light, and sharpness of the bee. To some extent they are related.

It's quite hard to make such pictures in direct sunlight. I think the best advice is to entirely avoid it. If you can't, make a roof. A white umbrella, a piece of paper, an assistent with a hat in his hand, there are many ways. The subject is small, so it won't be too difficult to shade it. The harsh light is most disturbing on the flowers, so as soon as you'd feel confident, you might try differential shading, leaving the bb a bit more of light.

The bumblebee itself is the main point of interest. it's eyes must be tack sharp. It is blurred, by motion I think. Faster shutter is the way to do that. If the light doesn't allow that, wait for an even darker hour and use a flash. Have the flash in a natural position, so somewhere above the bee and not on the camera. Then you can shape the depth in the photo.

This is a rather more directive critique than I usually give, but I hope it answers your question this way...

Hi Wim, thank you so much for taking the time to review and comment on this image. I knew when I posted it that it was not a good image but sometimes in order to get good advice you have to post a bad image.

I know harsh sunlight is hard to control which is why I had a go under these conditions. I will take on board your shading suggestions.

As for the lack of sharpness, at 1/1000 sec the shutter speed should (i think) have been fast enough and I put the lack of sharpness down to camera shake as this was a hand held shot. Tripod next time.

My other error seems to be composition with the green background not really working, I will wait for other plants to flower and try to capture the bees in other areas of the garden.

Once again thanks for the advice

Best regards

Gareth.