Bee's in Close-up.

I wandered into our garden for today's photo's.

My first choice had been to just take some pictures of flowers or plants. However, when I started taking pictures of our flowering hedgerow, the bumblebees started to fly into the frame. The photo shoot changed to that of a impromptu macro session.

I used my Canon EOS Rebel XTi camera with Canon EF 35-70mm f/3.5-4.5 lens to take the photographs.

The bumble bees were constantly moving, so I had to make sure that the focal point was it and not the flower it had just moved from. 

Because the bee was flitting about so quickly, I had to set the shutter speed fairly high so that the whole bee did not become a blur. Unfortunately this also froze his wings in some of the shots.

Getting an even exposure as the bees moved around the hedgerow was another challenge. I  used both shutter priority mode and aperture priority mode, as well as manual, to try and find which gave the best shot. On this occasion shutter priority gave the better combination. It ensured a fast enough shutter speed that the bee was not blurred, but also allowed the camera to select the best aperture for the available light. I took the shots early evening, before the light started to fade, but after the harsh light of midday. This helped to create a much softer light on the subject.

I tried to use the rule of thirds, (explored in an earlier post) to compose the picture to make the composition more interesting. The depth of field has been kept short, thus enabling the background to remain out of focus. This ensures that the eye is not distracted away from the bee and the flower in the picture.

The white and subtle yellow of the flowers also help to enhance the prominence of the bee in the frame.

For an impromptu macro shoot I really enjoyed it and I hope you did too. I will try and do another close-up photo shoot in the near future. 

Why not add a comment or suggestion of what you would like to see as the subject of that shoot. I will then, if possible, carry it out and then I will post the photos on here once I have done it for you to see.

Waddington Air Show

I have been rummaging through some of last years photos and came across a batch I took at the Waddington air show.

Here we have a World War 2 Lancaster bomber with its Spitfire escort.




As you can see I've used the rule of thirds again to try and help the photo.
Although good, this photo doesn't work as well due to the propellers being frozen in place taking away some of the illusion of movement.

The Vulcan bomber was returned to the skies in October 2007 for the first time in 14 years after its retirement following 33 years of service in the RAF.

Here we have it climbing into the sky at Waddington Air show 2008 one of its first public appearances.



And later seemingly chasing the Lancashire bomber across the sky.



By keeping the flow of the photo across the diagonal it helps to add drama to the shot. Also the cropping out of any land gives a further illusion of height to the action.




Also on display was the Euro-fighter, here doing an aerobatic display with its World War 2 counterpart the Spitfire. By taking careful notice of the angle of the shot it looks as if this photo was taken from another aircraft even though I was stood on the ground amongst a crowd of people at an air show.
It proves with some thought a photo can be changed from an ok shot to a great shot.

The Waddington Air show is a great opportunity to try various photo techniques some of which I have shown here and some which I will keep to show another day.

Pets

Taking photos of pets is not always easy.

Some pets seem to love their photos being taken, where others stubbornly either move away or come so close that the camera can't focus.

I am therefore lucky with my dog Blaze, she is one of those dogs who is very laid back and will quite contentedly lie there and let you shoot away.

Here she is chilling out

Composing the shot using the rule of thirds I have placed Blaze in the intersection of the thirds grid of the picture, cropping in close to get the full benefit of those eyes.

The rule of thirds means you split the photo into a grid like shown here.



The idea is that you place the points of interest at the cross points of the lines.
This allows the photo to be balanced and its been shown that a viewers eye automatically focuses on these cross sections of a photo.




I've tried to get each of the eyes and the nose as close to the intersections as I can.
In doing so I have created a picture that stands out and eyes which leap off the page.

Go on try it yourself.