Polistes exclamans

A Very Old Photo. (I just wanted to upload something.)

A Gorgeous female wasp drones as she defends the nest, and tends to the nearly adult wasp larvae.

This image was captured Way back in 2010 with my First 50D. I noticed a number of wasps flying back and forth under the awning of the balcony of my old apartment... Well I had to get a shot!! "A-Shot, Right!!!" Yeah, That Shot turned into a Total, Full Afternoon Session with my camera!! Well I searched and searched and searched for the nest, only to find that it was right next door. At first, I was quite frightened of the wasps... So, I started photographing with my 100-400 L, As a Macro, mounted on the 1:1 Macro converter. Results, weren't terrible, but, less than satisfying. Well, the wasps didn't seem to care much that I was there.. So, I decided to get, "Just" a bit closer.. I mounted the 50mm f-2.5, on the 1:1... Of course, my working room, dropped from 6 feet to something like 5 inches!?!? ... Well, I was shooting hand held, and above my head.. And the lens doesn't have a Tripod Ring mount, Which Really helps with my Macro Flash Bracket, so I had to use the Lens Ring Mount. The results, were pretty good.. And would probably have satisfied most people. But still, it just Just not good Enough!! I wanted to get a sharper image, as well as a closer look.. Well... I had already gotten THAT close.. "Lets get Closer." I grabbed a milk crate to stand on... I Mounted the MP-E 65mm 1-5x Macro (A Phenomenal Lens By The Way!) and again the MT24EX Flash.. Mounted my Flash bracket to the Tripod Ring Mount... Grabbed and set up my 6 foot Tripod.... Mounted the Heaviest of my Flex-Arms to a QR plate, and the camera body to the flex arm.. giving me an "Tripod Assisted Hand Held" Thing.. I climbed up onto the railing of my second floor apartment, half stabilized by the milk crate -- half by hanging from a roof Beam like a chimpanzee. And I shot this, One Handed, Hand held, with less than an inch of working room, And Oh yeah... ... 20 feet above the ground!!!

While I photographed, there were a few instances where they landed on my lens, camera, and hands, One investigated my face, and acted like she was going to land on my nose! I had no trouble with them, and they had no trouble with me!

In this session, With the Life Size Converter, I pushed the 65mm MP-E, from 1x-5x to 1.9x - 9.5x Macro!! Working distance dropped to a range of 2 or 3 inches, down to just a few cm! Results were, ASTONISHING! And WELL worth it!! And I'm not entirely sure, but I believe, this one was probably in the range of 1.9x - 3x???
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