If you're familiar with my other deconstructions then there isn't too much to add here: I baited this honeybee by injecting honey into some Wallflowers and waited for them to start feeding so I could get close. Then it's just a matter of holding onto the flower she's on with my left hand, brace the camera on that same hand, and take the shot. But for this image I took a short video of the "field studio" that I used -just a cheap trick to keep the background from being black.
There's no natural light in that image -it's all flash.
Update 27 Apr 2011:
I didn't go into a lot of detail on this image deconstruction since for me the way I focus the scene is routine. But I was asked about the depth in the shot and this is how I did it: Looking at that frame the curve from the proboscis all the way to the back of the eye has to be in focus, as well as that leading antenna. If any of those elements are noticeably out of focus then the shot won't work. To add insult to injury even if I did focus stack (I never stack) the honeybee is in constant motion so I have to get all of those elements in focus in a single frame. To pull it off I focused on the end of the proboscis and then locked that lower right hand corner in place. I can spin that corner on its axis, but I can't allow any vertical or horizontal movement and still keep that part of the frame in focus, or the framing where I need it to be.
With the lower right corner locked I twisted the camera so that the upper left and right corners went a little deeper into the frame. The end effect is the area of acceptable focus is over the curve that runs from the proboscis to the eye, but it's also intersecting the antenna getting everything in focus that needs to be. But because I've locked that lower right corner and twisted the camera it looks like I'm shooting parallel to the honeybee, creating the illusion that there is a lot of depth in the image when there actually isn't.
1 comment:
Very sharp, awesome...
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