Carol Sheppard
July 2024 - Bee Savoring Summer Pollen
About the Image(s)
This was taken with my 60mm lens and my Olympus OMD1-3, handheld. Bright light of summer, f4.5, 1/800 sec, ISO250.
I did selective adjustments in LR for shadows, highlights and whites. Then I added a little luminance to the yellows to bring out the spiky parts, and brushed out more highlights on the wings. I feel the wings do still need some iridescence, even if it looks blown-out a bit (my personal choice). Here's the interesting part: when exporting, I saw a checkbox for HDR, so I checked it. The difference is so very subtle, but I liked what it did.
This round’s discussion is now closed!
10 comments posted
Firstly, I really like this, but you know I have a soft spot for honey bees! I hope mine are all as busy right now.
Sharpness, as usual for you, is spot on where it's needed. I think I'd have gone for a bit more depth of field, say f11, just to make the body a bit sharper, but as the wings and head are sharp, I think it's fine as it is. Balance, ccomposition and exposure all look good to me.
I think the light strip top right could do with being removed, maybe also the ligher blue bottom right. Plus please dull down the green stem a bit, it's a bit attention-grabbing.
Posted: 07/08/2024 09:22:59
Sharpness, as usual for you, is spot on where it's needed. I think I'd have gone for a bit more depth of field, say f11, just to make the body a bit sharper, but as the wings and head are sharp, I think it's fine as it is. Balance, ccomposition and exposure all look good to me.
I think the light strip top right could do with being removed, maybe also the ligher blue bottom right. Plus please dull down the green stem a bit, it's a bit attention-grabbing.
Posted: 07/08/2024 09:22:59
Boy, you are so right, Stuart! This is one of the benefits of the DD groups: others see things that we have missed completely! Great input. Posted: 07/09/2024 15:53:55
Here is my remake of the bee; turns out that the original image left lots of room at the left side. I cropped the bottom and used Burning and Dodging to fix some of the blown-out bits. I used the healing brush and the cloning tool to fix that stem and eliminate the petal in the lower righthand side. Better? Posted: 07/09/2024 16:15:34
Perfect! Posted: 07/09/2024 20:40:00
Margaret West
Nice bee! I think this would look great cropped so the stem is almost out of the photo and part of the right side of the flower gets cropped out too. That puts the bee more in the lower left side a larger. I think the bee looks great and he is most important. Posted: 07/08/2024 11:22:21
In looking at it again, I wish I had cropped slightly more on the bottom. And I think the bee needs more space on the left side than I've provided...he feels too tight to the edge to me. I see what you mean about the cropping on the right--I don't like to crop out any of the flower if I don't have to, so I might just crop a bit from the bottom and darken down the stem as Stuart suggested. Since this won't be suitable for any nature competition, I will add to the left edge in Photoshop and eliminate those other bright areas in the background. Thanks for the input! Posted: 07/09/2024 15:56:33
Carol, love this great close-up shot of the bee at work. I would also crop it to leave more room on the left of the bee, like your 2nd cropped image. I understand that the environmental factors may not allow you to maintain smaller aperture so to allow more dof. So you chose the focus point to the eye & head.. Something I'll keep in mind. Thanks. Posted: 07/10/2024 14:50:15
Hi Carol, I really like the new version that you posted following Stuart's comments. Gorgeous composition and colors, I also like that you can feel the bee working. Posted: 07/23/2024 19:59:23
I keep a couple of colonies of bees in my garden. They are amazing insects. Did you know that the workers (all female) work themselves to death in about 6 weeks? They never stop while there's daylight. What a life. Posted: 07/25/2024 19:56:18
I see the bee!!! the front of the bee as the main event, so that is a success. if it was stacked [which would been impossible with a bee subject] then it would have been a competition between a bee and a piece of the flower. so macro on the bee and blurred flower makes a pleasing photo. I like that all the background is blurred and a nice green. I agree with shifting it/clone out the bottom purple and deemphasizing the bright yellow in the stem. so cheers to the redo you made. Posted: 07/27/2024 17:24:22