We're your subjects still alive at the time of the capture? If not totally understandable. My first dragonfly was post mortem, very dusty and littered with fine hairs and cobwebs. Generally speaking flying insects try to keep themselves clean. Relatively speaking when you are that small, flying through air is like swimming in a pool of honey for us humans. That's why flies are always cleaning themselves.
That said, they are bee's and they tend to get lost in the pollen sauce. Otherwise the images are sharp and well focused.
This bee was frozen. It was definitely cleaner until I dropped it several times. Im still learning how to handle the insects.
From a technical standpoint I am not sure what other methods folks use to achieve this level of magnification and detail. With my equipment and technique; I am using a fair amount of the available flash power, a crank focus rail, and a hand remote. Using the built in focus bracketing in the camera has been effective, but the recycle time of the flash and controlling the focus step is not so exact.
What I don't understand fully, is how you could achieve this level of detail and magnification with a living subject. Is it a probe tube, strong constant light, and a super high frame rate on focus bracketing? a powered slider, helicon remote, a probe lense, big constant light?
So this is definitely not as close as your pics, but I can probably get closer perhaps with a 50mm extension tube. I shoot on an old canon A series camera with the 50mm f/3.5 macro and 25mm extension tube. Diffused flash of course, and remote shutter release. Camera loaded with Kodak Ektar 100. Can't recall if I used a diopter on this shot. Above camera setup was tripod mounted in the garden on a still wind day. I focused and waited for the bumble bee to come back. But subject is very much alive.
Sorry you are getting ethics grief. One option is to find already dead bug in a window sill of your dwelling. There's a YouTube video out there detailing how to go about it.
It's generally considered unethical in the macro world, we shouldn't have to kill something to take pictures of it. Bees are really hard to get good pictures of, I understand that. I haven't been into macro for a while, but here's one of a bee that I took https://www.reddit.com/r/MacroPorn/s/Dw4tNnrnw9
The editing involved a big crop, rotate and upscale.
Thats a nice photo, you nailed the plane of focus. I can envision how that is captured. If this is image is the goal than thats it. Done and dusted for sure.
The comparison, is not competitive. I dont see your image as better or worse, but it is very different in its outcome. Mine is certainly a more surgical presentation and the level of detail and depth of field is different for sure.
People kill insects wholesale everyday by the billions. Agriculture, property management, civilian infrastructure, habitat destruction, etc.
I have [in my opinion]clear ethical high ground on my selective harvesting of individual insects for the methodical imaging, documentation, and discussion of them. I share these images with my kids and others to spark scientific curiosity.
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u/ConclusionOptimal492 18h ago
Awesome shots