Female Needham's Skimmer

[Don Lacy]

I believe this is a female Needham's skimmer but she could also be a Golden winged it is really hard to tell them apart from this angle, either way she is a beauty. Image made at Loxahatchee which is heavy with dragons this year.

40D, 500 f/4 + 1.4 tc + 25mm ext tube, 1/160 @ f/8, aperture priority, evaluative Metered + 1/3, raw, iso 400, flash with diffuser -1 2/3, tripod, crop.

[Gus Cobos]

Hi Don,
The focal point is not on the eye, it seems that its on the lower portion of the wing. I like the defused soft pale diagonal colors of the background. I think that this image would be stronger if you would capture it in a vertical...:cool:

[Ed Vatza]

Agree with Gus on the focal point. Love the background. But I think there is too much background and too little subject. I would like to see the frame filled more.Either get closer when making the image or crop in closer.

[Steve Maxson]

To these eyes, it seems that the head is "sharp enough." You might try some selective sharpening to see if it makes a difference. Love the stripes on the eyes. The pose and exposure look good and the background is very interesting (almost too interesting :) ).

[Robert O'Toole]

The image is nice, especially the sweet BG.

Agreed with the above about the eyes. Also the perch is a little bright and I think the near OOF wing is blurring some details.

I would have stepped one foot to the right, if possible of course, for a more head on angle and to solve the OOF wing problem.

Robert

[Julie Kenward]

The top of his body is also pretty blurry...again, making that move to the right might have made a big difference.

Dang, but that's one sweet BG!!!

[Mike Moats]

Hey Don, I really like this as the BG is very cool. Good details on the D-fly. I like it as is.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi Don,
Softness already covered.........if you can sharpen it a bit more.........maybe a slight crop off top and right to emphasize DF more.but that is one sweet BG.