Saw my first Winter wasp queen out feeding and looking for a mate before hibernating for the winter. My only excuse for cutting off various bits of wing and antennae is it was moving around fairly fast .
Hi Brian,
Looks like the old honey, sugar and wonder water is at it again?
Insane detail in the crop mate. . . . .very impressive DOF considering a 'quartering' angle for the shot.
Bruce
Yes I did spray the leaves with some sugar/honey mix.
Last shot is nearly at a magic angle- where you can get a lot of the bug in focus.
Magic angle- start off head on to the bug and move sideways about 30 to 45' and up 30 to 45 deg.
Phil - not sure where the wasps nest around here but fairly often see Queens and drones around this time of year and then again see the Queens in spring.
Brian V.
It's so ... furry. Amazing photos as always Brian.
First time I've read about the magic angle, gotta give this a try, thanks for the tip!
Also curious to know, (mind is practising heorycraft) do you spray multiple leaves or just a single leaf and wait? And wouldn't it be better to drop a single largish drop so it doesn't scuttle around moving from droplet to droplet?
Zichar - magic angles can very useful for getting most of the bug in focus in one shot.
I tend to spray several square foot of bush when I do this but just one pass (ie not soaking it). This seems to attract far more bugs than a few drops of honey but does have the disadvantage of the bugs not keeping still. I have once actually added some drops of honey near bugs already attracted by the spray and obviously that does keep the more still but has the slight disadvantage of looking a bit less natural.
Brian v.
I've been doing a sort of "tilt shift" movement with my camera to get those magic angles as well -really a must for people like me who don't focus stack.
I've been doing a sort of "tilt shift" movement with my camera to get those magic angles as well -really a must for people like me who don't focus stack.
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