Buddleia

Like Derek897 in his Montbretia thread, I was after an interesting shot of a buddleia head (flowers at one end to buds at the other). I didn't get it because this chap turned up and I got distracted...







I think it's a Hornet Hoverfly or Volucella zonaria, but I'm willing to be corrected.

Not competent enough to correct you - but you're right, it's so easy to get distracted once you put a macro lens on the camera IMO you'd benefit from changing your angle (if you can) to not capture the yellowish wall as a background - the greenery of your second photo (in the bottom right) is easier on the eye

Unfortunately, the only macro lens I own is a 35mm one for my Olympus 510, so wouldn't be much use for this forum. I actually used the kit lens - the only one I have for the Pentax. Hmm, a set of extension tubes wouldn't be that expensive...

As for the background, yes, I see what you mean. But the damned thing would insist on landing where IT wanted to! Mind you, in the second, I do like the tri-colour effect from bright to dark. But then again, see my sig.

Well spotted. Sometimes like this, you càn get great unexpected shots when trying to shoot something else.
Yep, bugs don't always play fair with positioning, some times I'll try and get as good as I can regardless of composition, then try and alter my position to get a better composition knowing that I at least have a backup shot if I frighten it away.
Good shooting

It being one of the biggest hover-flies, about 2cm long, even I couldn't miss it.

I think most of my shots when I am out on a 'project' shoot (good grief, that sounds a bit pretentious) are non-project shots. The fact that you are on a photo-centric outing makes you look more closely at everything, so more opportunities.
Makes sense, though it seems to vary by species and time of day. The fly above was having breakfast, so was not in a mood to stay still.
Thank you.

One extra thought, buddleia is great for attracting insects - seen plenty of bees and hover-flies on ours, and the odd butterfly - I think, had I my own garden, there would quite a lot of it planted. Not to mention lavender which seems to be quite attractive to our six legged friends.

For me, early morning or evenings tend to yield best results as bugs are either just warming up or starting to wind down for the night, midday they tend to be very fidgety 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

For insect images, I find it difficult to get a pleasing image with Buddleia, as it is almost impossible to get the subject isolated against a nice clean background, the Buddleia flowers are a bit too busy and the flower head is too large.

I prefer to mooch about in strands of tall wild grass, it's surprising the variety of insects that you'll find on these, including Damselflies, Butterflies and a variety of Beetles. I also like Lavender, but prefer the white French variety as this has more subtle flowers and stems, again I find this helps to draw attention to the subject (the insect) rather than to brightly coloured flowers.

The second image works best for me, but not because of the fly, it is for the reason mentioned above, i.e. the tri-colour split.

Regards
David