Photo of a lifetme? Not quite. How do I show the wings?

I took this photo this morning and am quite happy with it apart from the fact that the bee's wings are invisible. It was taken at max aperture f5.6 at 1/500th and ISO 100 in full sunlight. Since I only had a split second to change something, what could I have done to get the wings in there? Maybe flash? What speed does one need to catch a bee's beating wings?

D3100
Nikon 18-55 Kit lens at 55mm
f5.6, 1/500th, ISO 100.

This guy filmed it at 5000 frames a second,or so he says

Not sure what kind of setup you would need but I do know the wings of a european honey bee can beat up to 11,000 times a second. That's no typo... 11K beats per SECOND.

Now, they don't beat that fast all the time (average is around 9K per second), but it gives some idea what you're up against.



...

Glad to know I didn't screw up. Thanks.

WeeHector said:

Glad to know I didn't screw up. Thanks.

Click to expand...

Actually, you did pretty good. About the only way you are going to see the wings is when they are landed on a flower. When you do get that it is quite nice.

Peaked my interest so I googled and got all kind of answers but was led to this flickr site. Here is the exif but as you scroll down it says the on board flash did not fire.
Exif | Honey Bee Flying SOOC Capture Series #13 P1040959 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!
But he may have used an off camera flash but he was able to catch the wings. Might be worth to ask in the comments how he did that?

Ciao,
​Lou Cioccio

It's a very nice capture! I think with what you're working with your only other option was to increase the ISO for speed. But given the speed of the wings, it may not have even made a difference.

WeeHector said:

Since I only had a split second to change something, what could I have done to get the wings in there? Maybe flash?

Click to expand...

Not sure, but I read that bees wings might be closer to 200 beats per second, but 1/500 second is still too slow. But yes, speedlight flash is THE standard High Speed photo technique. Camera flashes are called Speedights, because at lower power levels (like 1/32 power level), the flash duration may be only say 1/20,000 second (durations are normally printed in the spec chart in the back of Nikon flash manuals). At say 1/4 power, you might still expect 1/3000 second duration, but full flash power might be 1/300 second. See Capability of flash units for high speed photography

Speedlights are definitely the only way to stop hummingbird wings. Also used for milk drop splashes.

You would underexpose the ambient a couple of stops so that its continuous light does not blur the motion, and then use the speedight at low power (up close) to stop the motion.

Thanks to everyone for your advice. I hope this info is useful to anyone interested in photographing insects.

Here's one I took with the 50mm F1.8 d lens...Aperture F5.6...Shutter 1/500...ISO 200....

I got this (little bit blurry) picture at 1/160, maybe bumble bees are a bit slower!

There's presently a tree I have to walk past to get to work and it is literally swarming with hundreds of honey bees so I'm getting loads of practice in finding the best settings. Lot's of trial and error but thank God for Exif.

You did better than I did. I tried for a while this morning and this was the best of the lot. I kept hoping it would come out from among the leaves, which may have made it a bit easier at least.

I went with 1/1000 sec and was able to mostly freeze their wings, but I think it might have helped that they were cruising in for a landing, too.

Those little bees were going 100 MPH, and these are crummy pictures, I'm embarrassed to post them. But it is five minutes work which is only about the point of stopping the wings.






This used a SB-800 flash on the hot shoe. It was in bright sun, but the camera Exposure Compensation was set to -3 EV (to make it dark), and the flash compensation (on the flash body) was set to + 3 EV (to bring it back up brighter, but with flash). Otherwise, it was point&shoot.

The speedlight is called a speedlight because its duration is extremely short and fast, much faster than shutter speeds. Speedlight is a major motion stopping technique. Actual shutter speed was limited to flash sync (1/250 second here), but it is dark without the flash, so the shutter speed doesn't matter.

It was TTL, so I don't know flash power and speed, but it was low and fast. It was ISO 200 f/8, so Guide Number computes a 30 foot range then. But this was at only maybe four feet, and direct flash, so power was pretty low (meaning, flash was pretty fast). Recycle time was about immediate.