Macro photography with a long lens
Honeybee mid-flight Yesterday I went to Kelowna's Kangaroo Creek Farm with my family. While they perused the various exhibits and paddocks, I wandered about with my 500 mm lens snapping pictures of anything that captured my interest. One such place was a patch of dandelions being actively solicited by honeybees. A 500 mm (750 mm relative) is not generally my lens of choice when photographing insects. The minimum working distance is extreme at almost 10 feet. I used my TC14 (1.4x teleconverter) to increase the magnification providing a reproduction ratio of 1:4. The resulting system allowed me to capture some decent images. A few things were working to my advantage. The midday sun provided ample light and I positioned myself with my back to it to reduce shadows. A modest ISO (400) allowed me to shoot at f/11 with a shutter speed of 1/500th of a second. The lens and camera system provided near-instantaneous focusing, as long as I wasn't too close, and I took lots of photo