General

The wasp is the one insect I never cared for until I got closer to them to photograph them.  I was afraid of the sting since they are usually a bigger insect and look threatening when flying.  From a distance as most people see them, they just look like a small flying insect around flowers.   With the wonders of photography and a macro lens, there is a lot going on when a wasp lands on a flower.    Wasp come in many different types from small to a large wasp such as the Hawk Wasp.  I now enjoy photographing wasp, but I keep my distance with some of them like the hawk wasp.  Was are rich in color and amazing details.

Planning My Day

When I am ready to focus on wasp photography, the time of day is somewhat important because bees are very common to see out there a couple of hours after sunrise,  From my experience that is the best time of day.  Wind can be a issue when blowing fairly hard because there is too much movement.   I usually use my Canon 90D and the Canon 180 macro with a soft flash system, but if I need some more distance the Canon 100-400 telephoto comes in handy.  The flash prevents unwanted shadows and provides nice lighting for the photo.  I use a tripod most of the time with a Gimbal to move fast and capture my shot.  One thing a photographer should do is just leave the camera in the bag and just observe.  Learning how insects move around and the nature of their activities has help me a lot to know when to press the shutter

Post Processing

I do most of my post process in Adobe Lightroom Classic and the rest in Adobe Photoshop.  Since the ISO for insect photography tends to be high, I use some plugins to save time with the noise reduction, however the technology on how these plugins work today is amazing.  Cropping is an important consideration because the bee is the subject and with a large area around her you do not want any distractions that take the focus away from the subject.