Common green bottle fly

[Jerry van Dijk]

This is a common green bottle fly (Lucialia sericata) on a tulip leaf in my garden. I was aiming for a minimalist look on a common species, hence the shallow DOF. It would have been nice to have had the other front leg in focus as well. I can count the individual lenses of the compound eye in the original at 100%, but they are a bit lost in the compression.
D7000, 200mm f/4 micro, handheld, ISO-100, f/11, 1/160 sec.
ACR8.4 WB, levels, S/H, some individual color tweaks to get the colors right on the eyes and the abdomen. Slight crop for composition.

[John Robinson]

Hi Jerry
Can see what you were aiming for (I think) I've come back to this a few times. My real crit is that for me the subject is lost in a large background. Just my view. Others will see it differently. As you say it would have been better with the other leg in focus.
Cheers
john

[Jerry van Dijk]

Thanks John. I'm experimenting a bit to get away from images showing the species in a very nice way to more ' impressionistic' images. I appreciate that that is not everyones cup of tea, and also find it hard to create really appealing images (especially of normally annoying flies....). I still have a lot of leeway to crop closer. Would that (partly) solve your issue with the image?

[John Robinson]

Hi Jerry
Yes, I think it is because the eyes are the focal point of the imasge due to them being the main area of focus that they appear to me to be sort of "lost in the wilderness " if that makes sense ?
Just my take.
As a matter of imterest I feel a little confused at the apparent lack of interest in this section of the site. I dont know why.
Cheers
John

[Jerry van Dijk]

Thanks John, I'll work on a repost.
Re. the lack of interest: I've been participating in this forum for a few years now, and find that the forum yearly suffers from a big dip in participation in winter and early spring, to come back to life again in spring/summer. My guess has always been that this is due to the lack of availability of macro subjects. We could try to draw some people here by posting a call in one of the general forums (or suggest such an action to Steve and Jon). What I like in the other forums is the weekly theme. We used to have it here in Macro as well, and it was quite succesful in generating more participation. It also helped me improve my skills by forcing me to think out of the box.
For me personally, participation in this forum is a bit on and of. My job is currently very busy, as is family life, so I don't get to spend a lot of time on photography lately. My backyard safaris are the only trips I've been able to take....

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Jerry. My personal taste tends toward the "more DOF is better" approach, but that's just me. The shallow DOF against a clean background does make for an interesting look and does focus your attention on those eyes. I like the off-center and slight diagonal of the comp. Like John, I think a tighter crop might help to give us an even better view of the eyes.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Jerry not an easy shot - am I right in assuming a manual focus lens? I would consider a tad tighter crop and lift the shadows a little bit too.

[Jerry van Dijk]

Thanks Jonathan. This lens has AF (i have the 'newer' model, which is an AF-D lens), but I never use it. It's quite slow, but I also find AF quite useless at these magnifications. One slight move and the locked AF is already off again. I usually manually focus and then get the final focus by moving the camera.

[Jerry van Dijk]

Here's a repost with the points raised above incorporated. I've increased the size a bit as well, because the lenses of the eyes are so tiny, you hardly can tell them apart in a small image. Tell me what you think!