I took this at the Woodburn Tulip Festival in April. I was using a macro lens that I rented from Pro Photo Supply, the Nikon 105mm f/2.8 AF-S Micro VR. The aperture for this image was f/3.2 which was the lowest setting for the given lighting conditions and shutter speeds. I didn’t realize how small the depth of field is when using a macro lens at close distances. I thought the f/3.2 would give me more depth of field than it did. This was the first time I had used a macro lens. It was a lot of fun to play with and it was definitely a learning experience.
This photo is a little soft. I’m very happy that I was able to capture the bee flying inside the tulip but people had critique this photo as being too soft. I used some sharpening filters in Photoshop on the bee and top of the tulip and then masked that into the original photo. I tried doing HDR on this photo but it made the background very noisy and distracting without adding much to the tulip and bee.
