Pond Skater

[John Robinson]

One for Nancy (Striders I think you call them.
Spent all morning battling with these. What a pain to do !!! Almost impossible to get the DOF at this angle . Easy from above but I wanted to show the connection with the water surface.
I wil ltry again with the 150 macro and get farther away and a small subject . It will sacrifice some IG for DOF
This one was in a rainwater butt . Makes it easier than squatting down !! White card all around the back of the butt to get some reflected light but didn't work too well. The sheen on the body doesn't help but its pretty !
The feed by picking up vibrations from insects which may fall on the water and buzz. Ifyou put your finger in and wiggle it they come to inspect your appendage !
Nikon D7100
Sigma 50 mm macro.
200 ISO larger speedlight mounted on hot shoe and others done with off camera unit.
Not much done. Neat image and cropped bit.
Got some nice stuff on a pair mating on the edge of a lily leaf but as I say I wanted one to show the way they "feel" the water surface.
Cheers
John

[Jerry van Dijk]

HI John, you succeeded very well in showing how these critters stand on the water surface. I also like all the details showing on the body and the metallic shine, although I do think the lighting is a bit harsh. I see a lot of sensor dust spots all around the image, but that should be easy to get rid of.

[John Robinson]

Hi Jerry
here,s a "tarted up " version! In fact when you really blow it uo, a lot of the pales dots are detritus on the surface and some of the dust bunnieswere in fact darker bits of debris. I must admit I didn't spent too much time cleaning uo the original as I didn't think there,d be that much interest. I,ve toned it down a bit too
Cheers
John

[Jerry van Dijk]

Hi John, there's no image showing for me...

[John Robinson]

Sorry Jerry
Here is !
John

[Jerry van Dijk]

Very nice! I see you opened up the shadows a little too, which is a good idea because it shows much more detail on the thorax.

[Steve Maxson]

Hi John. The repost is a nice improvement and the image does a good job of showing how these insects walk upon the surface tension of the water. Good sharpness within your DOF and the reflection adds interest. I would agree with Jerry that the flashes have produced some rather harsh lighting - diffusers would be a big help in softening the light and would take an image like this over the top. :S3:

[Jonathan Ashton]

Nice shot John, the light is a little harsh - I use a Stofen omnibounce - cheap and gives very even lighting - what aperture was it?

[John Robinson]

Hi Jon
Done in the wild I couldn't use a too complicated set up so I just used what I,d got. Flash on camera is the jessops one for Nikon, (cheap!) and in fact has a diffuser/ refector built in which was used on this shot. As I said some others were done with just the camera flash. I usually have the in camera contrast 2 down with flash but cant remember what I did with this one. Oddly, its the iridescence that I liked about this shot as I didn't realise they were like that underneath as we don't see it very often. I could play with it somemore but feel that would be creating something different. The aperture was 22 by the way.
Thanks for your interest.
John