Lady beetle and parsley

[telecasterguru]

Taken on my back porch. Canon 1000D 100-300 lens with kenkos.

Frank

[dpastern]

Not close enough Frank, but they are small buggers anyways. You want to really be shooting these at least at 2:1 if not 3:1 imho. Otherwise it's too damn hard to see details :( What focal length did you have the 100-300 zoom set to with the kenkos?

Dave

[telecasterguru]

It was at 100 but I wanted to show both the animal and its environment in this image not just the animal. Much the same as I tried for in this image of a grub eating a geranium.

Frank

[Lumen Miner]

Nice images. I get what you mean about trying to show the environment.
Although the "environment" has nothing to do with the amount of "free air" space around the plant which it is on. Your crop on the second is better, perhaps less "free air" and more lady beetle / plant action. That would allow you to zoom in more.
The second image is whack on size though. I can resize in Opera, but it leaves it up to me to judge what size is best. I know what I like, but make sure you re-size to what you like... That size is just way way to big for the net, printing maybe but not the net.

Keep up the good work!!

[telecasterguru]

Mitchell,

Thanks for the advice. I know what you mean about resizing and I will be more careful next time.

I am trying to sort out processing RAW images and it is a little different to working on jpegs in that there is so much more to consider and to do. These are my first efforts.

I only have the software that came with the 1000D so a bit limited but is OK for a start. Should I buy Elements 8? I have CS3 but it does not accept CR2 files.

Frank

[dpastern]

Frank - I understand what you're trying to do - I myself prefer to show the insect or arachnid in its environment (hence rarely seeing me take high magnification shots). I still think you could have gotten a bit closer and show a bit more detail, and still shown the environment.

Frank -with regards to RAW files, use the software that came with the Canon EOS 1000D. DPP is *very* good. Shoot in RAW, make your adjustments to exposure and sharpness in DPP, then export to a 16 bit TIFF file. Work on the TIFF file in Photoshop. CS3 is perfectly fine, there's no need to upgrade to CS4. I still use CS2 for all my images.

I do occasionally use Capture One Pro (very expensive pro orientated RAW convertor), but for you, it's overkill imho. DPP is 97% as good. Where DPP loses out is in colour accuracy (although it's very close), sharpening, and noise suppression (C1 pro is better imho, but again, not by a huge amount).

Dave

[dpastern]

Oh, and Elements 8 is a backwards step. You'll want to use ACR (Adobe Camera Raw) for RAW image processing (if you're not going to use DPP). ACR that comes with CS3 will not support the 1000D's RAW images as it was released nearly 2 years after CS3. Adobe tries to force you to upgrade to CS4 by not including RAW compatibility for ACR for new cameras with older versions of Photoshop. I of course, on principle, refuse to play their game.

Dave

PS I'm not a fan of ACR anyways, not as good quality as DPP etc imho

[telecasterguru]

Dave,

Thank you once agian for your excellent advice. I have started using DPP as I forgot that it even came with the camera. I find that for where I am at it is very good.

I may go to Lightroom somewhere down the track but I am happy with DPP.

Frank

[dpastern]

DPP is pretty good - easy to use, UI is pretty good, provides good results, and best of all, is free. You can't beat it imho.

Dave