PDA

View Full Version : Loner



Kaushik Balakumar
01-13-2008, 06:21 AM
Perhaps a 'Pennsylvania Leather Wing' insect. Am unsure about the ID.
Made this image near a lake in Bochum - Germany.

http://www.pbase.com/bkaushik/image/82628052.jpg

Nikon D70s + Nikkor 105mm f2.8 VR micro.
As far as my memory goes, the aperture is f11 but I don't have the other EXIF data. Hand-held shot. Natural light, no flash used.

Critiques most welcome...

Regards,
Kaushik

Arjan van der Stelt
01-13-2008, 06:54 AM
Good sharpness but try some fill flash next time to get rid of the shadows, to avoid the hard flash light use a diffuser or a white piece of paper.....

Judy Lynn Malloch
01-13-2008, 08:35 AM
Very nice detail and composition. Arjan had some great suggestions to get rid of the shadows and the image is just a tad dark IMO.
Also would like to see a little more room at the bottm.

Robert O'Toole
01-13-2008, 11:08 AM
Bkaushik

Love the lighting and the water droplets.

The lighting is perfect the way it is just the tonality of the image that is a little dark. I would mask the highlight and lighten the image with a quick curves adjustment in PS. This would also allow you to reverse the mask, pop it on to a new layer, then you can even darken the highlight to balance the tones.

Robert

Chris Starbuck
01-13-2008, 01:39 PM
Nothing to add to what the others have said, photographically; I like it. Just a note on the ID. I'm not an entymologist, but we have lots of Pennsylvania Leatherwings in the midwestern US. It's one of the few beetles I've actually managed to ID. Your beetle is probably related -- same body form, and the wings are similarly colored -- but I don't think it's a P.L. The colors on head, thorax, and abdomen are quite different.

Kaushik Balakumar
01-13-2008, 02:42 PM
Thank you all for taking your time out to comment.
I guess, I should try using flash more often. What has happened in past is that flash over exposes certain regions & many a times the image looked like 'copy-pasted'. I guess I should try some diffusers to overcome this. Will start experimenting more on this...

Regards,
Kaushik