Andrena - in memoriam

[Planapo]

Hi folks out there,

last weekend on a bike trip I found this bee sitting on the side of a not very busy road. It´s an Andrena sp., at about the size of a honey bee but solitary, not eusocial as the latter. The poor thing showed several injuries, from a car crash I presume, and couldn´t fly anymore. She was just slowly crawling around a bit, sitting still most of the time. A closer look revealed interesting parasites on her body (not shown here) and as she was close to death anyway, I decided to take her with me back home. (All of the about 550 bee species that occur in Germany are protected by law, amongst them more than 100 Andrena spp.)

Now, I find bees very cute insects and hence, before taking all this world´s troubles from her and preserving her and her parasites, I wanted to keep something of this Andrena´s living beauty. So I fetched my little digital point-and-shoot and tried to capture some macro shots which was quite annoying with this camera (Spoilt with digital I haven´t used my old Minolta X-700 SLR any more for a while but yet haven´t upgraded to DSLR either. Just when I had decided to shop for the 20D it wasn´t available anymore ).
Well, out of about 60 shots with my point-and-shoot there were finally a few that had the focus where I intended it to be. And this is only since the bee, due to her injury and disease, was very cooperative, just clambering around a bit on the twig I had set up for her.

Two of the results I don´t find too bad to show can be seen here. (Critique is welcome but guys, don´t be too critical about the quality because I think with this camera one - or at least I - can´t achieve much more.)

Ricoh Caplio GX, built-in flash, hand-held, cropped.








Bye for now,
Betty

[rjlittlefield]

Maybe the pics are a bit noisy, but they show interesting detail and the poses are pleasant. I think you did well!

The information is very welcome too. I had no idea that all bees are protected in Germany. Can you point to an article on how that came about?

--Rik

[DaveW]

Isn't the 30D just the 20D tarted up? I nearly changed to Canon when I went digital and was considering a 20D, but then heard the 30D was being released so hung on. But the reviews knocked it as hardly being any different to the 20D, so I stuck with Nikon as I had used their cameras for 35 years and got a Nikon D200. If you wanted the 20D just buy the 30D, I believe you get the same sensor because that was not upgraded as was expected.

http://www.vsxl.com/cameras/Canon_EOS_2 ... S_30D.html

DaveW

[MacroLuv]

Very, very nice, Betty! The photos and the story also.
Do not undervalue point-and-shoot cameras. They could give surprisingly good results!

[Ken Ramos]

The 20D and 30D are pretty much the same camera with the exception of a few extra and much nicer features, one being most noteable, the larger preview screen. Actually I think the 30D is a few dollars, not much mind you, less than the original 20D if I recall.

Anyway, back to the bee photo. I guess we can't comment too much on the short comings of point and shoot but then again some of those cameras rival dSLR's in their abilities...(eh Nikola?) So just for the record I think the composition is great Betty and the photographs are well presented. Like Rik, I did not know bees were protected in Germany either or anywhere else for that matter. Though here of late that may all change in the US since our Honeybee populations are declining at an alarming rate.

[Planapo]

Thanks guys for the ecouraging and helpful comments.

Yes, I have the 30D on my shopping list, but now there are rumours that a 40D may be launched later this year. This camera might perhaps have a live-view monitor, a feature that I´d appreciate very much. That has made me hesitating to shop for the 30D.

Rik - yes I can see what you mean with "a bit noisy", though that noise got worse with uploading and viewing the pictures on the LCD display of my notebook now. On my old CRT monitor of my desktop computer (that has no internet connection) where I edited them they looked a bit different and had less noise. I´m not so familiar with image editing software yet, and hence might have sharpened too much or done something disadvantageous when compressing/downsizing.

Rik - I have no special article to refer to how it came about that all the bee species are protected by law in Germany. But when it comes to wild bees in Mid-Europe WESTRICH (1990) is a standard reference book, an impressive two volume work with a lot of excellent photos. So I can think of reasons for the protection of the bees as follows: They are major pollinators and hence important to wild flowering plants, and of course fruits and crops. They pollinate in places that lack honey bees, and especially Bombus spp. fly and pollinate even when the weather is too cold for Apis. An additional reason for protection is that wild bee species often depend on special nesting sites and food plants, and therefore are declining rapidly with the loss of special habitats that provide these eco-factors. This should hold true for other insects too, e. g. several Diptera, but with bees beeing comparably large insects and widely regarded likeable by man, they have obtained more attention by researchers and are better monitored. Actually, there are complaints about the decline of wild bees and other Hymenoptera by researchers that date back to the year 1900.
The fact is that all Apoidea are protected by federal law in Germany since 1980. This "Federal Species Protection bye-law" ("Bundesartenschutzverordnung", abbr. "BArtSchV" http://bundesrecht.juris.de/bundesrecht ... gesamt.pdf) which is updated from time to time, comprises a lot of other animal and plant species, among them other insects explicitly listed by scientific name (including Lepidoptera, of course see p. 16 and the following of the linked pdf), but lacks logic in several respects and is often criticized. For example, there are species regarded as threatened and therefore on the Red Lists, but not protected by that law. Well, bureaucracy turns out to be "bureaucrazy" and a lame duck quite often, doesn´t it?

Betty


WESTRICH, P. 1990. Die Wildbienen Baden-Württembergs. Vol. 1+2. Ulmer, Stuttgart.

[DaveW]

It is always a problem with rumours Betty, as somebody elsewhere said the average life span of a DSLR is now 18 months, far shorter than in film camera days. By that they did not mean it only lasted that long, only that was around the average time span the makers went before introducing a new upgraded model. Cameras are like computers now, new model replaces new model at an alarming rate.

You have to dip your toe in sometime Betty as with computers. If you want to have the latest with some time before it is superseded then just after a model is launched is the time to buy. The disadvantage of this is it is at it's most expensive. If you are not concerned at being up to the minute with your camera then the best time to buy the old model is just after the new one is launched when dealers will be discounting it to clear their shelves.

My Nikon D200 has not been superseded yet and I bought it not long after launch April 2006 at the best price I could get. I could now, in just over a year, get it for two thirds the price I paid for it then.

As with computers the model is no worse when it is superceded than when it was launched, perhaps a bit better as they have ironed the bugs out by then.

I just found this, if they are correct the 40D is as much an upgrade as the 30D was. And always treat these "previews" with caution because people often start the rumour by pasting a new model number on an old camera picture they have "tweaked" in Photoshop:-

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/digital-came ... 238614.php

For many years Nikon has been playing catch-up with Canon, but over the last few years Canon has been trailing Nikon in the prosumer market for some of it's DSLR's, not in sales but their new models specifications.

All the best,

DaveW