I was just started taking some dewdrop refraction shots on the grass when I saw some movement out of the corner of my eye followed by quite a loud thump. A bumble bee fell vertically out of the air onto the grass beside me. Took some shots then encouraged it to walk onto my finger so I could take some shots whilst it warmed up. After a few minutes of this it was able to take off again. Found out one thing - fingers and bumble bees give quite an exposure headache .

Brian V.

Looks like the little critter is having a bad hair day Excellent set Brian -you handled the exposure quite well

Thanks John
Had to do quite a bit of curves work to get some detail on the bee whilst not blowing my finger
Brian v.

v.nice esp like the last

michael kilner wrote:
v.nice esp like the last

Tanks Michael
Brian V.

Well rescued Brian excellent set

Wonderful! Again.

Mark

Fantastic set. I don't think I could handle a bumblebee walking around on my finger - too scared I'd be stung. And you calmly go and take excellent photos on top - wow.

Hi Brian,
Impressive and beautiful.
Were these taken with your MPE-65?
Any chance that you could suggest a quick fix for a Nikon user to zero in on the MPE's capabilities?
Bruce...

Thanks again for the comments all - appreciated

fotonix - you have to be pretty mean to a bumble bee to get it to sting you.

Bruce- I used to shoot with just a sigma 105 and then added ext tubes to get to 2:1 and then used a reversed 50mm lens on the front to get to 3:1 or 4:1 with both. The MPE-65 is just more conveniant to use
A body reversed kit lens will give you a zoom macro going from 0.5 to 3:1 but is not so conveniant to use because of the difficulties with aperture control.

Brian v.

Hi Brian,
Thanks for your suggestion.
When suggesting a 'kit' lens, are you referring to the now standardized 18-55 zoom and reverse mounted to the body via the Nikon BR-2A mounting ring?
I read somewhere else in this forum that you can set aperture by setting it manually before removing from the camera and then reverse mounting? I'm pretty sure the posting was about Canon lenses, is this possible with the Nikon variety? I am assuming that I will have to get hold of a 'D' series lens so that aperture can in fact be selected manually?
Thanks again for any assistance.
Bruce...

TheBat wrote:
Hi Brian,
Thanks for your suggestion.
When suggesting a 'kit' lens, are you referring to the now standardized 18-55 zoom and reverse mounted to the body via the Nikon BR-2A mounting ring?
I read somewhere else in this forum that you can set aperture by setting it manually before removing from the camera and then reverse mounting? I'm pretty sure the posting was about Canon lenses, is this possible with the Nikon variety? I am assuming that I will have to get hold of a 'D' series lens so that aperture can in fact be selected manually?
Thanks again for any assistance.
Bruce...

Bruce - yes i was thinking of the std kit lens but forgot about the aperture control. I'm really not sure if the "canon" trick can be done with the nikon lenses esp as I think Nikon lenses shut down the aperture if removed from the camera whilst canon lenses open up. It would be much easier to use with a manual aperture contol lens although think you may still need to play with the aperture lever to allow aperture changes.

Brian v.

Thanks again Brian,
I really appreciate the help from you guys who have spent years working at the coal face.
Just as an aside, I took some pics of a bumble bee this morning and although they were clear and sharp, they were nowhere near as bright as those images of your bee displayed here. Any chance that you could give a quick idea as to the lighting that you used for this series of images?
Sorry to be a pain in the bum, but it's the only way to really shorten my learning curve. I was just playing with a moth before, and by the time that I had adjusted a few things and went to the viewfinder he was long gone. . . . . hehehe.
Bruce...

TheBat wrote:
Thanks again Brian,
I really appreciate the help from you guys who have spent years working at the coal face.
Just as an aside, I took some pics of a bumble bee this morning and although they were clear and sharp, they were nowhere near as bright as those images of your bee displayed here. Any chance that you could give a quick idea as to the lighting that you used for this series of images?
Sorry to be a pain in the bum, but it's the only way to really shorten my learning curve. I was just playing with a moth before, and by the time that I had adjusted a few things and went to the viewfinder he was long gone. . . . . hehehe.
Bruce...

Bruce- as I implied in the original post these shots apart from the grass shot were an exposure nightmare - I had to do some curves work during the RAW processing to lighten the bee without blowing other colours. I just used my standard 430Ex bracket mounted flash for these shots - camera in M mode flash in TTL.

Brian v.