This photo was taken a few weeks ago at a local botanical garden. I tried different color combination of insect and flowers; somehow the bee and the yellow flower seems to compliment each other. The dark color band/stripes on the body of the bee seems to compliment the little brown spots in the flower (surrounding the center of the flower)… I tried another color combination of orange butterfly on orange-red flower; that did not come out well (the image on the side) - the reddish color of both subjects seems to complete with each other and clashed.
I used 1:1 aspect ration crop (an aspect ratio I have been experimenting recently with flowers and insect shots).
Tech spec: Nikkor Z 100-400 lens, focal length 270mm, shutter speed 1/160 seconds, aperture f/22, ISO 360.
4 comments posted
Ruth Holt
Jennie, good job of getting the bee working of the flower. Reckon she is just staring her work as I don't see the pollen sacks. Wonder if you might consider darkening the white areas in the center of the flower. The other flower is sharp also but I agree with you about the red and the butterfly detract from each other. Posted: 08/17/2026 15:44:13
Jennie Wang
Hi Ruth, you have good eyes. I have actually darkened the white are in the center of the flower... but stopped after it was not "glaring" white anymore... maybe I should spend more time on it. I will do that next time.
The problem of going on a photo walk is trying to get through the batch quickly to see it... I need to be more patient. Posted: 08/24/2026 03:40:01
Eric Schweitzer
A good flower shot and the bee adds a focal point. It looks a bit out of focus and a little noisy. I tried sharpening in Lightroom and Topaz Photo and denoise in Topaz photo but did not get much improvement. Lightroom has a good denoise app, but it does not work on jpg images, I think it may be insufficient data. Posted: 08/18/2026 14:09:03
Jennie Wang
Hi Eric, yes, i agree it looked a bit soft and noisy. That is my problem with insect shots... they move so fast that sometimes I don't have the right setting when it happened. My shutter speed was too slow (1/160), it got to be at least 1/600 or faster to get a clean shot. I am learning it the hard way. I have started shooting in manual mode but still struggling to dial in the "appropriate" setting from time to time especially when things are happening fast or switching subjects (e.g. from flowers to insects or birds). Posted: 08/24/2026 03:43:52
