On January 30 this year, while on my backyard safari, I observed two bees darting between the bee hive in my neighbors yard, and a decaying pumpkin in his mulch pile. I was thrilled by this sure sign that Spring would come, and I set about to record the event. I captured the image with a hand-held Canon EOS R5 in Aperture mode and a Canon RF 100-500mm lens set to 500mm. With hopes of capturing a bee in flight, I set the camera to: f11, ISO 1600, 1/1000 sec and focussed manually. I did not get a bee in flight but I did get one on the pumpkin.
I imported into LightRoom Classic and cropped.
The bee and the section of pumpkin on which he stood were masked using “object”. The software masked only a swath of the orange pumpkin, and I liked the effect. To deal with the bright background I inverted the mask and adjusted exposure, highlights, whites, and blacks to produce the black background.
I then masked the bee and pumpkin and adjusted tone, presence, HSL. The image was denoised and sharpened manually in LRC. The bee’s left wing was problematic. I masked it and darkened it slightly, but the white background still comes through. Suggestions for dealing with transparent bee wings will be most appreciated.
12 comments posted
Karl Leck
Hi Judith, Great job extracting this small scene from the big picture and bringing out shadow detail. The masking process nicely simplified the image to the point where a pumpkin is not recognizable. That brings our attention exclusively to the bee and its reflection. The wings show good detail. The very warm color balance makes it a golden moment. As an alternative, I cropped the top and made the color balance more neutral in Adobe Camera RAW. Karl Posted: 03/12/2025 09:21:22
Judith Lesnaw
Many thanks Karl. I like your crop and color balance for a more natural look. In your version the reflection is more prominent, and I love that feature.
Posted: 03/12/2025 09:47:22
Lauren Heerschap
What a lovely macro shot! Although I like Karl's version for color, I think it is a maker's choice. If you want high impact from the color, your version is fine. I think your question about the wings is not a great concern; they look transparent to me. Maybe the space between the wings could be darkened and that might help? Spring is coming! Posted: 03/12/2025 14:20:08
Judith Lesnaw
Thanks Lauren. I do like high impact for very tiny things. I will try darkening the wing as you suggested, but I am glad that the wing seems OK to your eye. Posted: 03/13/2025 19:26:09
Chris Howes
You win my macro heart with this one. Very peaceful image, and the glow is exquisite. Posted: 03/13/2025 19:22:32
Judith Lesnaw
Thank you so very much Chris! I also love that glow. Posted: 03/13/2025 19:27:02
Peter Newman
You did a nice job of extracting the bee. Karl and Lauren have already answered your wing question. I am glad that you are using manual focus for macro shots. Y get so much more control that way. I do wish that you were able to get the bee's eyes. There are times that you have to keep shooting until the daughter of a bee looks up. Posted: 03/14/2025 16:44:17
Judith Lesnaw
Thanks Peter. I got the eyes in other shots. I liked this one because of the amazing reflection of the eye in the moist pumpkin. Posted: 03/15/2025 10:14:41
Hanoch Peri
Judith, capturing a bee in such detail is really challenging, and you've done a great job getting those fine details on the body, especially considering the crop. I'm wondering, did you happen to be slightly outside the minimum focus distance of your lens? (I believe it offers around 0.4 of 1:1 magnification?) Have you considered cropping the image while preserving the existing background? This might potentially improve the appearance of the left wing and maybe give the overall image a more natural feel? Posted: 03/15/2025 10:09:20
Judith Lesnaw
Thanks Hanoch. I am not certain that I unserstand your cropping suggestion. Can you clarify?
Posted: 03/15/2025 10:16:45
Hanoch Peri
My suggestion is just an option to be closer with that lens, (you can still focus) that will result a "bigger" bee in the image and in such case you'll need less cropping. Posted: 03/16/2025 00:21:21
