Passionfruit Flower Draws Honey Bees

Exotic passionfruit flower acts like magnet for honey bees in search of nectar, Curry's Post, KZN, South Africa. © Scotch Macaskill

Camera Gear: Canon EOS 50D; Lens: Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM; Focal length: 300mm; Shutter speed: 1/1600; Aperture: f/5.6; ISO: 400

When the passiflora vine (Passiflora edulis) in our garden is in flower, the exotic, colorful blooms demand to be photographed.

On this occasion there were honey bees buzzing around the flowers, attracted by the nectar, so instead of a simple flower shot, this became more challenging as I wanted to include the bees.

I’m not a bug photographer and don’t even possess a macro lens, so had to rely on my Canon EOS 70-300mm zoom lens. It has a minimum focus distance of less than five feet, which allowed me to fill the frame with a flower at maximum zoom of 300mm.

I initially tried hand-holding, but even at high shutter speeds plus image-stabilization, I battled to keep the camera steady at such close range. With the camera on a tripod and the lens’s image-stabilizer turned off, I felt more confident of minimizing camera shake and getting sharper pictures.

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