Honey Bee Flower

[vishnumohan0311]

NIKON D5200
f/5.6, 1/1000, 55 mm, ISO100

[Shadowman]

Nice shot.

[vaez]

nice pic

[IzzieK]

Vishu...Your image here is a little bit blurred and out of focus...The flower looks nice, it has more focus there.

[Wavelength]

Overall it is nice, but there is some focus issue as Izzie has pointed out. Minor adjustments in brightness and contrast are needed, i feel

[John 2]

+1 to the above feedback from me. Choosing your moment, you could probably have got away with 1/250th sec @f11. That would have given you a greater depth of field.

[vishnumohan0311]

+1 to the above feedback from me. Choosing your moment, you could probably have got away with 1/250th sec @f11. That would have given you a greater depth of field.

Thank you for suggestions

[vishnumohan0311]

nice pic

Thanks.
I am Vishnu from India and my Facebook id is vishnu_uplc@yahoo.com. What is yours?

[vishnumohan0311]

Nice shot.

Thank you

[vishnumohan0311]

Vishu...Your image here is a little bit blurred and out of focus...The flower looks nice, it has more focus there.

Thank you for suggestions

[DanK]

Vishnu,

Nice capture. You got a good perspective this time. I agree about the focus issue.

It would help to have a little more information. This is shot at 55mm. What lens did you use? If it is not a macro lens, did you put a diopter on the front or use extension tubes? How did you focus? Did you use autofocus, and if so, did you use a single point or multiple points? If you used a single point, where did you aim it?

Let me suggest three issues.

First, in general, for photos like this, the eyes are the most important thing to have in focus. Sometimes you can accomplish this by placing a single AF point over the eye, but many macro photographers focus primarily manually, usually by moving the camera. I usually set the lens based on how close I want to get, focus approximately with AF, and then rock the camera slightly forward or backwards until the eye is in focus, then quickly take the shot. A monopod helps a great deal in doing this. I still miss much of the time and throw out most of my images.

Second, the f/5.6 reported is way too wide for a shot like this. It is hard for me to say what it should be because some Nikons report effective f-stop rather than nominal f-stop. The macro tutorial on this site explains the difference. For bugs of this size, I normally shoot around f/13 nominal.

That brings up the third issue, which is lighting. This shot is too dark, even at f/5.6. Insufficient light is often a serious limitation for this sort of photography. Most serious macro photographers use a highly diffused flash for this reason. That allows a reasonable aperture with good lighting, and it freezes motion. My most common bug-hunting setup with a manual flash is flash set to ETT-L (auto), camera set to manual mode, f/13 nominal, 1/125, ISO 100 or 200. If there is a reasonable amount of ambient light, you can control the mix of flash and ambient light by changing the ISO.

I'll post a picture of my most common bug-hunting equipment. The flash is a regular E-TTL flash. The flash bracket I built myself from parts. The diffuser is made of two soda cans. (Google 'coke can diffuser' without the quotes.) the actual diffusion surface can be lots of things. I think this one is two sheets of parchment paper, and a plastic diffuser on the flash head.

Unfortunately, this approach requires additional equipment. It is also quite awkward, because the off-center flash throws things out of balance. However, with enough practice, it works well. I'll post one shot that I took this way. The wind was blowing the flower, and I had to take the shot over and over to get one that was enough in focus to keep.

I hope this helps.

Dan