Common blue damselflies

[Jonathan Ashton]

Bean bag lying prone
Camera Model Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Shooting Mode Aperture-Priority AE
Tv(Shutter Speed) 1/200
Av(Aperture Value) 10
Metering Mode Evaluative Metering
Exposure Compensation 0
ISO Speed 500
Auto ISO Speed OFF
Lens EF180mm f/3.5L Macro USM +1.4x
Focal Length 252.0mm
Flash Off

Jury's out for me not too sure if I like this one or not. It is a little on the busy side but then ponds tend to be a bit busy! I look forward to your comments likes/dislikes.

[Bob Smith]

Jonathan I like the fine detail type of vegetation matter on the pond here but I found the right hand set of insects to be a distraction ( not being as nicely profiled as the others) and felt like there was too much of what is otherwise a quite excellent BG. I therefore tried cropping the shot down to show just the left lower quadrant of the image out to the left hand insects. That put more focus on those lovely blue and green bodies and the pond detritus and had the , to me at least, salubrious effect of removing some of the large swath of monotone green of the lily pad in the bottom right corner as well.<script type="text/javascript" src="safari-extension://com.ebay.safari.myebaymanager-QYHMMGCMJR/183ebccb/background/helpers/prefilterHelper.js"></script>

[Jonathan Ashton]

Bob definitely agree about the lily pad - too much. Regarding the second pair of damsels, for me this is an integral part of the scene, perhaps if I re cropped to move things slightly to the right they would look a little more prominent.

[Ron Conlon]

I like what you are going for here, and acknoweldge the degree of difficulty. I too think that the lower right lily pad disrupts the composition.

[Steve Maxson]

This is a very strong behavioral image, Jon. I'm impressed that the flying damsels are sharp at 1/200 ss. I think the image could use some ccw rotation. I would suggest cropping some from the left to get both pairs of damsels closer to the rule-of-thirds positions. Not much you can do about the lily pad - maybe crop a little more off the bottom?