Macro: Comfort Level (Two Photographs)

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When I talk about insect photography I get asked about two things: how close can I focus on my subject, and my comfort level in terms of how close I can get physically to insects that bite or sting. There are two answers. The first is with the increase in megapixels, a 20plus megabyte camera is quite sufficient to permit cropping close to a hundred percent and makes the magnification of the lens less important, especially in the case of close-up photography. The second is the length of your lens. The thing to keep in mind is working distance, the distance between you and your subject. The longer the lens the greater the working distance, a 105mm lens will give significantly more than a 60mm lens or 50mm lens especially if they are reversed. A greater working distance can raise comfort levels for you and your subject. Caveat: nothing stops the bee from deciding to fly in your direction, though in practice this has happened to me only once.