Jon,
I'd think, unless you have professional grade gear, moving
subjects?won't allow time for autofocus to do it's thing, My Nikon
ZFc has really good autofocus, but even that with my Sigma 150-600
zoom is not fast enough for moving birds. You're likely getting
the same results with your moving bees.
Years ago I did some photography as a CART IndyCar race here in
Wisconsin and what I write below is based on a "trick" that a
professional photographer taught me (moving cars, etc.): set up
the gear to photograph?a spot on the track and go at it when the
cars came by. I'm thinking you may can adjust that approach for
what you want to do.
With some stationary object, shift the body to Manual mode, set
up your body and lens for a narrow aperture (for good
depth-of-field focus) and very fast shutterspeed. I know that's
not intuitive, because closing the aperture while also increasing
the shutterspeed significantly affects the light gathering
potential, but?you should be able modify the ISO to get more
sensitivity and doing this outside in bright light really helps
(I've actually overexposed images trying this for bird photography
LOL).
This way you can set your preferred focus range?with an aperture
of F/16 (e.g., to get one foot depth of field), shutterspeed
(e.g., 1/2000/sec to freeze the bee motion), and ISO (e.g, 800 or
1600, even in sunlight) in advance,?knowing that any bee in that
one-foot distance, even if it's moving, should be in focus
(because of the aperture) and sharp (because of the shutterspeed).
You can experiment with moving YOURSELF forward and backward as
the bees move to shift that (e.g.) one foot area. You can probably
move yourself faster than the camera can move things, so don't let
the camera change things.
Regards.
On 6/7/23 17:15, Jon wrote:
I¡¯ve been playing around with macro a bit and have been on a bee
binge lately.
There is a trumpet vine growing wild along my
neighbors fence line that I don¡¯t have a problem with since it
is an attractant for bees and hummingbirds.
The weeks I am oncall for work I am stuck at home
and use it as part of my backyard safari project.?
I do have a Tamron 28-300mm ¡®macro¡¯ lens that is
fine for static subjects with my D300s but does not cut it when
it comes to autofocus on fast moving bees. It is just too slow.
I¡¯ve been playing with my Nikon 28-300mm AF-S VR
lens which has a pretty quick AF motor and using extension rings
for a closer working distance. It can be frustrating at times
when it decides to hunt. With that said when it works it does a
pretty?good job. Today I tried using manual focus on some bees.
I had one that was being cooperative when I had the 28mm
extension ring on it. The challenge I had was the focus ring is
small and not the smoothest.
I¡¯ve been looking for a 300mm macro lens or at
least closet to 200mm that has a fast AF and a decently smooth
wider focus ring.?
Any thoughts or experience on such a beast if it
exists?
It would be nice to go from bees to hummingbirds
which I can¡¯t do with the extension rings as you lose a lot of
your focus range.
Trying to capture bees in flight is my goal
especially if they are laden with a ton of pollen.
I believe Nikon made a 300mm macro f/4 lens. If
the ones I was looking at on the used market were that, they
were still pricey.
I do need to upload some of what I have been doing
on flicker and re-organize that.
Thanks for your input.
Jon
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¡°Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.¡±
