DEK Photography: A Bee in Mid Flight (Micro photography with the Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 G)

First of all, I'd like to thank all the minnows and whales, which made me smile today - my first post with a significant income is now a fact! Take a look: DEK Photography: Two Natural Enemies

On the same post, I had a short discussion with @boddhisattva and mentioned the fact that the Nikkor 50mm 1.8 G lens can actually be used for macro (micro is the proper term, really) photography, with two conditions:

• It's difficult to auto focus on small moving subjects. Although possible, using a smaller aperture and manual focusing is the way to go.
• A bit of cropping is required - not really a problem on modern 24 megapixel bodies.

Nikkor 50mm 1.8 G, f/5.6, 1/800s. You can click for a bigger image!

There are two significant advantages here:

• This is probably the cheapest (or second cheapest G lens, after the 35mm 1.8 G) and nowhere near the price of micro lenses.
• The image quality is stunning, as you can see from this lovely bee photo (including an awesome bokeh!).

Time for a bee fact!
Bees are actually completely silent in flight. The buzzing sound we often associate with bees is not actually produced by the fast movement of their wings, but by special organs, used to communicate with other bees - not only revealing the location of nectar (which is often aided by complex "dancing"), but to assert dominance among other individuals.

Be sure to follow #dek-photography for more of my work!