Stuffing pollen baskets
The Multiflora Rose bush beside the garage was loaded with blossoms recently, providing good subject material for testing a Nikon Coolpix P7000 someone loaned me. This bee sat on this blossom for nearly a minute busily transferring pollen from its head to the forelegs, then to the mid legs, and then to the hind legs... and into the pollen baskets. The process happens very quickly and is interesting to watch, if you're lucky enough to have a bee ignore you, remaining absorbed in its work. Taken with a Nikon Coolpix P7000, shooting through a large "common Objective" from an American Optical "Cycloptic" stereo-microscope mounted on a special adapter, with pop-up flash lighting shot through a home-made diffuser. This is the camera set-up used for this image:
www.flickr.com/photos/61377404@N08/27830973705/in/photost...
The "Macro" mode of the camera at its closest focus produces a "field width" of 1.5 inches at a lens-to-subject distance of 3/4 inch. You have to use the wide angle end of the zoom range to use the macro setting. The extremely short working distance is difficult to work with, especially with living subjects. It's so short that getting light onto the subject can be a problem. Using the AO objective, in the macro mode you can use the maximum telephoto end of the zoom range, creating a generous 4 inch space between lens and subject. The magnification gets quite a boost too, with the field width dropping to 13/16 inch. Despite the P7000 having image stabilization, I like to use a shutter speed of 1/1000 second. This camera only stops down to f/8, which gives very shallow depth of field at higher magnifications.
DSCN0804
Stuffing pollen baskets
The Multiflora Rose bush beside the garage was loaded with blossoms recently, providing good subject material for testing a Nikon Coolpix P7000 someone loaned me. This bee sat on this blossom for nearly a minute busily transferring pollen from its head to the forelegs, then to the mid legs, and then to the hind legs... and into the pollen baskets. The process happens very quickly and is interesting to watch, if you're lucky enough to have a bee ignore you, remaining absorbed in its work. Taken with a Nikon Coolpix P7000, shooting through a large "common Objective" from an American Optical "Cycloptic" stereo-microscope mounted on a special adapter, with pop-up flash lighting shot through a home-made diffuser. This is the camera set-up used for this image:
www.flickr.com/photos/61377404@N08/27830973705/in/photost...
The "Macro" mode of the camera at its closest focus produces a "field width" of 1.5 inches at a lens-to-subject distance of 3/4 inch. You have to use the wide angle end of the zoom range to use the macro setting. The extremely short working distance is difficult to work with, especially with living subjects. It's so short that getting light onto the subject can be a problem. Using the AO objective, in the macro mode you can use the maximum telephoto end of the zoom range, creating a generous 4 inch space between lens and subject. The magnification gets quite a boost too, with the field width dropping to 13/16 inch. Despite the P7000 having image stabilization, I like to use a shutter speed of 1/1000 second. This camera only stops down to f/8, which gives very shallow depth of field at higher magnifications.
DSCN0804