Any tips?

[drea]

Spotted a few of these flying round the garden the other day. I shot dozens of empty frames because they kind of dart around a lot. AF was useless, this was manual focus about 8 feet from the camera.

Anyone got any tips to capture them sharply?

70-300@300, f5.6, 1/1000 sec.

[drea]

poah said:

yes a rings flash helps but you have to watch your shutter speed as it's most likely going to be above the camera's sync.

Yup, the D70 only syncs to 1/500s (still pretty fast though).
I think the tricky part is the focusing. With the wide open aperture the focus has to be spot on.
I imagine for your shot (V. nice BTW ), you pre-focused on the flower and waited for the bee to come along.
My beasties (horsefly?) hover over the lawn, so there's no reference for focusing. They only stay in one place for a second or so too.