BIML

With seven species of bees having been added to the US endangered species list only a month ago, photographs may soon be all we have left. Thanks to the USGS Native Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab (BIML), at least we’ll have those. For the past several years BIML have been creating stunningly beautiful macro photographs of all types of bee species. With over 3,100 images hosted on Flickr, they offer a special glimpes into these vital creatures.

Photographed by researchers at BIML, the images were created through focus stacking. Macro lenses have an extremely shallow depth of field when used with close subjects, and this process allows the photographer to have the entire subject in focus. Essentially, the photographer creates a number of photographs of the subject at various focus distances. These are then blended together in post to construct an image that is completely sharp from front to back.