Friday, 7 September 2007

Bumble Bees in Motion

Bumble Bee in Flight - Landing on Rocket Flower
bumble bee flying hovering landing on pak choy plant's flower - Bee hovering in the air
The First Photos from the new Fujifilm S9600!
It's amazing how the best moments for photos seem to appear when you least expect them. Yesterday I was outside as soon as it stopped raining, taking pictures of the flowers & leaves all wet and bristling with dew drops. I got a few good photos which I'll get up here soon, but just as I was leaving I noticed some bees flying around the Pak Choy plants. I snapped some photos at a relatively high shutter speed, not expecting to get much out of them as the bees were moving very quickly. But it seems I had underestimated the new camera. The photos turned out quite well, even after I digitally cropped them to less than half their original size.

I've included two of the best bee photos here. The first one (above) shows a bee hovering in the air mid-flight, about to land on a yellow Pak Choy Flower. You can actually see the bee's wings as they flap through the air at top speed.

In the second photo (below) the bee has landed and is sucking the pollen from the flower. Notice the large yellow pollen sac at the middle of the bee's body. Again, the yellow flowers are from a Pak Choy plant.

Bumble Bee Feeding - Resting on Flower
bumble bee sucking sitting resting on yellow pak choy flower - Bee on flower
So far my experiences with the Fujifilm S9600 have shown it to be well worth the money. It certainly has exceptional macro capabilities, and it's great to have full manual control over the shutter speed and aperture settings. I'm looking forward to lot's more great photos in the months to come, and I hope you too can share in the enjoyment of this "wonderland of nature".

Coming up: After the Rain....

These photos taken with the Fujifilm S9600 camera.
Shutter speed 1/399, F5.7 (#1) & f7.2 (#2), ISO 200

Related Photos:
Bee landing on Lavender Flower
Life on a smaller scale [Mushrooms in Grass]
Close-up of yellow Pak Choy Flowers
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22 comments:

  1. david mcmahon9 September 2007 at 7:31 am

    Great results. Good on ya Dave. Sounds like you're having fun with the camera.

    As for the shots - mate, that really is ``hover craft''.

    Well done

    Keep smiling

    David

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unknown9 September 2007 at 6:09 pm

    Hi David,

    Thanks for the comment, I agree, the bees are actually great "hover craft". It's amazing that human invention can't mimic the behaviour of a bee's wings - it's just too complicated!

    David

    ReplyDelete
  3. Chris10 September 2007 at 1:14 pm

    Nice pictures! I love the pollen sac, almost blends in with the flower! I bet it feels great to play with a new toy(camera) :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. david mcmahon11 September 2007 at 5:45 am

    G'day Dave,

    Hope you're having fun with the new camera. You might like the new post I just published, called `Image Conscious'.

    Cheers

    David

    ReplyDelete
  5. Michele11 September 2007 at 7:16 am

    Amazing capture. Absolutely amazing...

    ReplyDelete
  6. Unknown11 September 2007 at 8:44 am

    Hi Chris,

    Yep, it is great to play around with the new "toy". I spent most of my free time in the past few days playing with it (that is, when I wasn't reviewing the pictures on the computer!)

    David

    ReplyDelete
  7. Unknown11 September 2007 at 8:47 am

    G'day David McMahon,

    Thanks for the tip, your post looks interesting... I'm certainly having fun, as I mentioned to Chris - what I find amazing is that I've only gone through 3 sets of batteries in the past few days!

    David

    ReplyDelete
  8. Unknown11 September 2007 at 8:51 am

    Hi Michele,

    Thanks for your comment. I was actually pretty amazed myself that these photos did turn out so well.

    David

    ReplyDelete
  9. Staci Rose12 September 2007 at 7:25 pm

    I'm with Michele - absolutely amazing capture! Wonderful in every way!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Nature Nut /JJ Loch13 September 2007 at 1:38 am

    Gorgeous!!! I love your artistic eye. :D

    JJ

    ReplyDelete
  11. Cindy Garber Iverson13 September 2007 at 1:56 am

    Very nice photos! I particularly like the second one. The composition is great and the subject matter is one of my all-time faves! Cindy at Rosehaven Cottage

    ReplyDelete
  12. Unknown13 September 2007 at 4:45 pm

    Hi staci,

    Glad you like the photo - even now I still think it's amazing that this new camera was capable of getting this shot with so little effort!

    David

    ReplyDelete
  13. Unknown13 September 2007 at 4:48 pm

    Hi JJ,

    Thanks for your comment. I'm planning to post some more photos from this camera soon, so keep an eye out for more!

    David

    ReplyDelete
  14. Unknown13 September 2007 at 4:50 pm

    Hi Cindy,

    Glad you like the photos. I particularly like bee photos too - although I prefer the first photo, it is more "alive" as I see it! :)

    See you later,

    David

    ReplyDelete
  15. myonlyphoto14 September 2007 at 12:59 pm

    Nature is wonderful and so your photos. Anna :)

    ReplyDelete
  16. Unknown14 September 2007 at 3:46 pm

    Hi Anna,

    Nature is wonderful. Let's make sure we keep that sense of wonder at creation, and don't destroy it by our "technological advances"!

    :)

    David

    ReplyDelete
  17. Anonymous15 September 2007 at 6:44 pm

    good gompositi�n and shot in the right moment, i like it.

    best wishes and good shots

    ReplyDelete
  18. Unknown15 September 2007 at 8:41 pm

    Hi pedro,

    Thanks, this was really a spur-of-the-moment shot, and it was great that it turned out to be the right moment!

    Best wishes to you too,

    David

    ReplyDelete
  19. RBChallenger16 September 2007 at 2:19 am

    Not just alot to say about this one that already hasn't been said. You've got a knack going for this sort of photography... thats a good thing since this is one of my favorite forms of art... hehe. Great shot!!!

    Regards,
    Richard Jones
    http://www.lightning-alley.com

    ReplyDelete
  20. Unknown16 September 2007 at 10:44 am

    Hi Richard,

    This must be about the most commented post on my blog to date - 19 comments - no wonder you can't think of anything new to say!

    As I mentioned to Cindy, this is also one of my favourite types of photos. (Look, even I can't say anything new!)

    See you later,

    David

    ReplyDelete
  21. RBChallenger16 September 2007 at 2:08 pm

    This would also make my most commented article... I think for many blogs out there 19, now 20, comments is quite impressive. Though I must admit that secretly I would hope that someday I could climb to the 10+ comments per article rating... hehe, got a ways to go there.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Unknown16 September 2007 at 4:00 pm

    Richard,

    I know what it's like to be wishing for 10+ comments - until about a week ago I would be lucky to get 10 per post. But I think a blog does tend to reach a "critical mass", when the number of posts and promotion gets enough to start dragging in a big flux of visitors. All of the big traffic surges in my blog have come suddenly, mostly after the 100 posts mark was reached.

    BTW, my other blog The Big Byte hasn't yet reached that critical mass.

    (Whew, that was a long "casual reply"!)

    David

    ReplyDelete

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