These critters look like bumblebees, but they’re squash bees, native to the Americas, working over a squash blossom just inside the garden gate. Much smaller than carpenter bees that drill holes in nearby garden posts, a bit smaller than bumblebees, and good to have around when you’re raising squash!
I noticed the third bee only after looking closely at the picture.
This is a handheld tight macro with the Canon SX230HS using the flash. Surprisingly, the autofocus target picked out the bees and tracked them quite well. A tripod would help, but not all that much.
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 
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4 responses to “Squash Bees”
Canon SX230 HS, was it an easy choice?
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/q311travelzoomgrouptest/page17.asp
Yeah, pretty much. [grin]
The deciding factor was the fact that the SX230 has full manual controls. Outdoors, in good light, with an ordinary subject, the automation does a fine job. For benchtop subjects, the flash goes down by 1 stop, the exposure goes down by maybe 2/3 stop, and the aperture goes to f/8…
Most of my pix happen in the Basement Laboratory, so GPS tagging doesn’t have much benefit. Outdoors, the GPS lock time varies from a minute to slightly longer than forever, making it useless for quick pix. If you’re taking a series of pictures and are willing to / can wait until it locks, then it’s all good, but you can’t predict any finite time.
Macro focus seems iffy, which is likely a complex interaction between hand-held / aperture / exposure / subject. I’m conjuring up a macro lens snood with an LED ring light, which should reduce that problem by enlarging the subject. Although the snood won’t be pocket-sized (even ignoring the LED power source), it will definitely come in handy on the bench.
“f/8 and be there”
“If your pictures aren’t good enough, you aren’t close enough.”
— Robert Capa (stepped on a landmine)
You wonder what those great photographers would do with contemporary cameras… probably fight the automation to a standstill, set f/8 with the shutter at twice the ISO, dial the focus to 10 meters, and take pictures!
If I have the chance, I’ll take one picture with automation and then another with manual settings. In ordinary situations, the automation does just fine and I can guess a slightly better setting, but pix like that roller coaster required dozens of attempts to get the one good shot that mattered.