So a few weeks ago I had this mad idea to try a spot of macro photography – how hard could it be?

Armed with nothing but a cheap set of macro tubes and my camera, I set off into the garden to see what was on offer and set my mind on capturing a nice shot or two of a bee hard at work on our lavender bush, simple right?

I soon found that not to be the case. In order to get a sharp image with any kind of depth of field, I had to venture down into the murky realms of f11/f13 which meant I could wave goodbye to 100, 200 or even 400 ISO – it really was quite a challenge but a very enjoyable. I spend quite a while with my head stuck in the lavender, my nose only inches from these busy little chaps and they don’t sit around, they really live up to their ‘busy bee’ name.

a bee on the lavender

coming in for a landing or just taking off?

trying to get to the good stuff

a little white bee

I think these are called buff-tailed bumble bees – I think they live in our lawn!

I’m generally fairly happy with some of the results but there’s clearly plenty of room for improvement – hmmm maybe an actual macro lens might make a difference … lets just check out the wex website…