Hornet vs Wasp. When Goliath won over David.

This is the best of a sequence of about a dozen shots I took this morning. There are a few trees with over-ripe fruit near where I live and they are attracting insects of all kinds. I was stalking a hornet when it suddenly attacked a wasp and flew off with it onto a branch. This was a split-second opportunity with little chance to make changes to the settings but fortunately I have foreseen such an event and have set up the camera for it.

The background and the leaf on the left were in sunshine while the insects were in shade. I have therefore lightened the shot. The camera was hand-held at about 4 inches from the subject. I got even closer with later shots but focusing was difficult, and besides, would you want to get close up to this?

In spite of what is about to happen, i.e. the wasp is torn apart, I love the elegance of the hornet's leg holding onto the branch.

I'm happy with this photo but I would like to know what others would have done on the spot and in later processing. All critiques welcome.



D3100
40mm Nikkor AF-S Micro f/2.8G
f/11, 1/200th sec, ISO 400
AP mode
Hand held, manual focus
Subject distance approx 4 inches (10 cm)

Interesting shot. Actually this looks like two hornets though a hornet is also a wasp (at least in the wasp family). Nasty little buggers they are, I step on every one I see! I made a few changes to the image to give it what I think has more impact. I cropped out the leaf using a vertical crop and softened the bokeh, which is a little distracting. It still tells the same story but the image focuses more on the two insects and their life and death struggle. What do you think?

I like it a lot. Thanks, Scott.

As for the family connection, hornets are in the genus Vespa, which most people would assume would be wasps, whereas wasps are Vespidae. European hornets are actually much less menacing than European or common wasps and will only attack when directly threatened. I personally don't kill any creatures except flies, which are a total nuisance. Discovering tiny creatures though photography has given me a respect for them I never had before.

]I agree it needs cropping. Here's my take... Definitely crop out the superfluous leaf on the left edge, but let's keep the subject on Two-Thirds line. I corrected the color (it's a little too green), increased the contrast a touch and sharpened things a bit.

Edit: Now with the correct attachment!

I agree with you guys. When I posted this I wanted to give it a sense of environment but regretted the big leaf almost at once. I didn't want this just to be a murder shot from a movie. The reason for keeping the leaf was to get the red of the hornet as close to the golden spot as possible. This is one of the sad facts about the 1024 limit on photo size as one must often cut away setting in the interests of seeing the subject of the photo.