Roaming Thailand- honey bee in action

Dying flowers

I just spent five days in Petchabun, a small city in northern Thailand about 350 km from Bangkok.  It was a pleasant time and the weather was ideal, somewhat warm during the day and cool at night.  At least for Thailand.  Sad to say I didn’t have much time to devote to photography and was scratching my head for something to shoot.

Just beyond the house was a dying weed with some flowers.  so while waiting to go out to eat, I decided to take some photos of the plant, mainly the flowers. It was a beautiful sunny day, the sun was beginning to descend in the mountains to the west.  And as you can see, the flowers were well lit with sunlight.

I noticed a wild bee going from flower to flower  and the hunt was on.  The bee only remained still for seconds as a time before it flew to a different flower so I knew it was going to be difficult trying to photograph the bee with my Leica M8, which is a manual focus camera.  I selected the Summicron 50mm f/2 lens and set the aperture between f/2 and f/4 for various shots as I wanted the depth of field to be narrow for maximum “bokeh” (out of focus area).

Pollen heaven

So in a span of about 20 minutes I took about 50 photographs of which the following are a sample.  Remember, no special equipment, no telephoto lens  (or zoom), no auto focus and no auto exposure.  Everything done the old fashion way.  It was difficult sometimes adjusting the focus quickly but I think the results turned out pretty good.  And if I can do it, you can do it.  The keys are patience and practice.  Give it a try.

Above the fray

Two courses

One more time

Check out my other blog Leo’s Bangkok Photos for a very special bee photo.   Same bee caught in midflight while landing on a flower.