Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

How can you ever be done with bees... Shot with reverse-stacked lenses 100/50, ISO 200, 1/200-sec at f/32, speedlight setting close to full power.

I think that at f/32 I give up some sharpness, but at this magnification it is hard to say if the increased DoF is not worth it. Life is always a trade off.

I do not know what kind of bees these are as they are less than half the size of a typical honey bee. These pics are uncropped, for me a big challenge for shooting at high magnification is actually getting your subject in the frame as things are constantly moving especially when there is a little bit of a breeze. One thing that people may not know about using flash in macro is that the higher the flash setting, 1/2 or full power the more motion blur will be present in the photograph. Flash power is determined by the length in time that the bulb is lighted not by the intensity of the blast. So if I were to use a wider aperture and reduce flash power I could expect better clarity of the in focus areas, but then would lose some DoF.

Nikonian72 Loc: Chico CA

Excellent!

martinfisherphoto Loc: Lake Placid Florida

Very Nice

Coolcameragirl Loc: Bradenton, FL

The detail is great. Nice work.

Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

Thanks everyone. It helps to get feedback, I often will go for months without picking up my cameras but I am starting to have fun with them again. and it is a learning process, I am really new to both using stacked lenses and until a couple months ago I was only using natural light. that was a huge mistake, next to a macro lens the best purchase a person can make for macro photography is a good speedlight.

tinusbum Loc: east texas

nice shots,your right about that.i shot macro for a year with only natural light.when i started using a speedlight, my shots got way better.

Country's Mama Loc: Michigan

Very nice.

Screamin Scott Loc: Marshfield Wi, Baltimore Md, now Dallas Ga

Hard to be certain, but I believe it's a Sweat Bee...First shot is excellent !

Shaka Loc: Brisbane, Australia

Excellent shots, Blurry!

Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

LOL You might be right, It's as hot as Hades outside and I was sweating quite abit getting those shots.. I ended up with about 12 keepers out of a little over 100 pics, not a bad deal handheld.

These are pretty small bees with what I think is an oddly shaped head. Here are some shots that give a different perspective.

Screamin Scott Loc: Marshfield Wi, Baltimore Md, now Dallas Ga

Here's one of my shots of a "Sweat Bee"...Did they look like this?

Tompar Loc: Bedfordshire UK

Gave me butterflies in my stomach as I looked, incredible.

Nikonian72 Loc: Chico CA

Blury's bees have a proboscis and jointed antennae. Scott's hornet have biting jaws and flexible antennae.

Screamin Scott Loc: Marshfield Wi, Baltimore Md, now Dallas Ga

I stand corrected....I grabbed the wrong shot in the folder....Here is the one I meant to show...

Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

Good catch Nikonian.. But Scott and I being from the south understand the colloquialisms, well kinda because in reality I did a search on "Sweat Bees" and what I found was they "In the United States, the common species are black, brown, red, or metallic green, and sometimes with yellow markings, and usually 1/4 to 1/2 inch (4-10 mm) in size." As far as I can tell the term covers a variety of small bees that are attracted to sweat. Scotts pict looks very much like the bees that I am shooting, I have seen several colors on these flowers from black and white, to brown and yellow, to green and yellow, just as the Wiki article talks about. These are the flowers currently in bloom in an area where there are few other flowers blooming except for some aloe, what is odd is that I am seeing honey bees on the aloe but have not noticed any on the daisies, and just alot of small bees on the daisies. The honey bees are not settling long enough on the aloe to shoot using the stacked set up.

I think that Scott and I are taking pics of the same bees, I did not adjust my white balance when I shot these pics and I think that it is still set for Sunlight, I also probably pp a little warmer than Scott does... I tend to go for a more artistic look than documentation... but here are a couple of facing shots of the bees that clearly show their jaws.. The bees I have been shooting have the banding on the back section of their bodies just as Scott's bee does..