Bees at Work, Overtime

My wife went out for a solo walk yesterday early evening. Five minutes after she left, she used her cell phone to alert me that some bees were very active in a neighbor's garden. That was very thoughtful of Pam, but don't those bees realize that it's difficult to photograph them when the daylight is fading? Well, no matter, I took the challenge. I quickly mounted a macro lens and a flash (for fill light) on a DSLR body and speed walked to the site. I would have trotted, except that I didn't want to arrive too winded to hand hold the camera.

I made guesses for preliminary settings as I walked. When I got there, the bees were still flitting from flower to flower. Shooting mostly at ISO 2500 and f/5.6, I got shutter speeds up to 1/250 second, with the flash dialed back and popping softly to punch up the colors a little without being obvious as a light source. Wow, I could not have done this in my years of shooting film! I so appreciate the advances in high ISO digital technology!

All paths lead to the bee.

I almost forgot to include this one, actually shot before the bees accepted my presence and returned.

All with Canon EF 100/2.8L IS macro, Speedlite 600EX-RT, 1DX.

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