Beetles Eating Daisy Pollen

[Dalantech]

This is heat of the day shooting (28C/86F) and the critters were hyperactive. Fortunately these beetles were more hungry than afraid, and I'm getting better at tracking moving subjects with the camera and had several frames to choose from. If you've ever wondered why I don't focus stack it's images like these that are one of the reasons why.

Tech Specs: Canon 80D (F11, 1/250, ISO 200) + a Canon MP-E 65mm macro lens (over 2x) + a diffused MT-26EX RT (E-TTL metering). These are single, uncropped, frames taken hand held. In post I used Topaz Denoise AI, Sharpen AI, and Clarity in that order.

Beetle Eating Daisy Pollen by John Kimbler, on Flickr

Beetle Eating Daisy Pollen II by John Kimbler, on Flickr

[aveslux]

Well chosen angle to get both mouth-parts and eyes in focus at f/11

[Dalantech]

Well chosen angle to get both mouth-parts and eyes in focus at f/11

Thanks!

I'm holding on to the flower's stem with my left hand, and resting the lens on that same hand to keep the scene steady. I slide the lens on my hand to where I want the focus to start, in this case the mouth parts, and then I twist my right wrist to lay the area of acceptable focus over as much of the critter's face as possible (and sometimes twisting the flower/perch as well with my left hand). Takes some practice, but eventually you build up the muscle memory for it. To speed the process up a bit I taught myself to do all of the framing and composition with my peripheral vision, so I don't have to take my attention away from where I want the focus to start. Really handy when trying to get a magic angle on a moving subject.

[Guido]

fantastic pictures!

Is there a need to denoise with ISO 200?

[Dalantech]

fantastic pictures!

Is there a need to denoise with ISO 200?

Thanks!

There is a little image noise, not much but I want a clean file before I sharpen it. I was playing around today and I could probably just run Sharpen AI because it has some built in nose removal. I'm pretty much the last person to give advice on post processing since it's the weakest area of my photography at this point, and I could very well be doing something wrong.

[aveslux]

In my experience the Topaz denoise in sharpen does a decent job of smoothing the bokeh without affecting subject detail out which makes the subject pop a little more. I only ever use the Topaz sharpen as a final pass before publishing.

[Dalantech]

In my experience the Topaz denoise in sharpen does a decent job of smoothing the bokeh without affecting subject detail out which makes the subject pop a little more. I only ever use the Topaz sharpen as a final pass before publishing.

Thanks for letting me know!

[Guido]

In my experience the Topaz denoise in sharpen does a decent job of smoothing the bokeh without affecting subject detail out which makes the subject pop a little more. I only ever use the Topaz sharpen as a final pass before publishing.

Thats good information thx;

I recently improved the bokeh by setting clarity to zero after sharpening.

[hayath]

Absolutely beautiful! the pollen and rich color makes this set stand out

[Dalantech]

Absolutely beautiful! the pollen and rich color makes this set stand out

Thanks!