Today in My Viewfinder

One photo, three edits, a problem

Text and photos by LensAfield
9/6/21

I haven’t participated in the Photo-a-Day Challenge, instead submitting sporadically as time permits. Today I thought I would take the challenge literally and submit a post based strictly on a single photo.

Capturing small, fast insects in flight requires a good deal of thought about how best to accomplish the capture I want. One aspect is to provide plenty of lead space around my subject. I need to follow it on its flight path in my viewfinder to sight-lead it into the zone of my camera settings for depth of field, fields of view, illumination at capture, etc. If I am successful, I take the shot just as all the elements come together, hopefully, where I anticipated they would (this is where electronic viewfinders on mirrorless cameras fail me).

The banner photo above is the original unedited image except for resizing from a full resolution, 300ppi RAW file, to a .jpeg at Medium’s preferred resolution at 72ppi.

At this particular time of day, I saw there was a small window of opportunity to create one of my trademark/signature “helicopter” shots. The natural light was right if combined with the right exposure/flash recipe to capture wing motion in that manner.

The scene didn't look like it will end up producing much of anything. But as I was looking through the optical viewfinder when the flash went off, I could tell in that split second of the bee being illuminated that I nailed it.

Now I have to figure out which edit I like best for my portfolio. Maybe two…

I got a few more decent images in that brief period when the light was right, but I liked this one best.