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John Mack
08-04-2016, 09:11 AM
Dragonfly on a cool morning covered in dew.

Canon 5d markIII
180mm macro
F9.0
1/200sec
ISO 3200

Please critique & comment.

Jonathan Ashton
08-05-2016, 10:07 AM
Firstly welcome to the Macro Forum John this is an excellent start. Good control over noise. I like the composition, the dragonfly is in excellent focus, sharpening is good and not excessive. I see your histogram and whilst the highlights are well controlled the darker tones are a little compressed.
I have a couple of suggestions:
1. I would lift the darker tones just a little. If you are familiar with luminosity masks these would help to lift the darker tones.
2. The background is interesting, natural and is essential to the scene but for me just a tad intrusive. There are several ways to deal with this e.g. mask the subject then reduce contrast on the background or soften some of the leaves by lightly brushing with green so they become less obvious. You can use filters to blur but in general it soon becomes obvious so if you do go that way go sparingly. The leaves need to be visible but just muted again just a little.

Steve Maxson
08-07-2016, 11:29 AM
Welcome to the Macro forum, John! Love all the dew drops on the dragonfly and you have good sharpness throughout your subject. Jon has some good suggestions above for you to consider. In addition, I would wish for a little more room at the top - just enough to fit in the rest of the plant head. Overall, this is very nicely done and a few tweaks will make it even better. I hope to see more of your work here in Macro!