Quote:
Originally Posted by dpastern
Andrew,
I quite like #1.
#2 shows promise, is sharp, but an awkward pose from your model (tachnidae fly).
Likewise, #3 is nice, but top down shots aren't generally very grabbing in macro. They are good for identifcation purposes though.
I quite like #4 - nice lighting. Is this a single shot, or stacked?
#5 - wonder dolichopididae shot - these are hard to get a decent shot of, they're very sensitive to light, and the pre-flash from the flash gun usually makes them very edgy. I've gotten a lot of frames with them jumping out of the way, a blur and only partially shown ;-) Very good detail btw, and the lighting is quite nice too.
#6 - Good Bee shot, I rarely shoot them these days, they're just too unpredictable for my nature, and I'm too impatient. A bit too centered compositionally wise - a golden rule of thumb is to always allow free space in the direction that the Insect/Arachnid is looking, and I think the image would be better rotated 90º clock wise. Other than that, really nice Bee shot.
#7 - really like this shot, plenty of good detail and a good pose too.
Looks like a good day out, I much check these gardens out myself one day.
You might want to check out one of the other members here, troy piggo - he's an excellent macro imager. Also, if you don't know him already, check out Brian Valentine's images (LordV on flickr), and alliec on photography-on-the.net/forum too. Both are awesome macro photographers. There's plenty of people's images that I could recommend, far too many to list here!
Dave
|
Hi Dave
I agree with the angles on the tachnidae, but these were pretty jumpy so I took what I could get.
Number 4 was a single shot (at f16) and was done using a 100mm. I don't have the MPE-65 so it is hard to do refractions through dew drops.
The dolichopodidae was flighty too, but they are fairly easy targets because they never bother to jump too far. In the past I have used their behaviour with the preflash to get them jumping by focusing on them then framing just above them. There is one on my Flickr site - see the macro set.
I have always struggled to get a great bee shot - they are always too busy and you can never seem to get the right angle. This is certainly one of my better ones. I did crop the image some to remove the legs of another bee that were at the top of the frame.
I am on POTN (AMD72) and have admired Brian's, Troy's, Alistair's and your shots for some time. I was the one that dragged Troy out to Leyburn too, so we have certainly met. It was Brian's shots that have made me think about the lighting of these macroshots - the way he illuminates the scene without it looking like a flash has fired, it is something I am still striving for in my shots.
thanks for the feedback Dave.