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Petros Petrou
10-05-2008, 10:22 AM
This is my first post in this forum area. Image created in our garden in a small village in central Greece. Although this species is quite common here, this is my first attempt to photograph it.

Canon 1DM2n, 100-400L + 1.4xII, monopod. Full frame.
ISO 400, 1/200, f/11

Comments and suggestions are welcome.

Petros
Julie Kenward
10-05-2008, 01:12 PM
Petros, welcome to the Macro/Flora forum! This is such a treat to see a species we normally wouldn't get to see. You did a really nice job of getting the flower and the head of the insect/bird (?) in focus as well as a nice, soft background. Your composition is a bit centered - you might want to take a look at trimming some off the right side and leaving the flower more in the ROT's position or you could try a vertical crop instead of a horizontal.

I see you chose 1/200th for a shutter speed and I like the soft fluttering to the wings. If you want to get the entire body frozen in flight I would suggest at least a 1/500th (probably more) next time. Overall, I like this very much!
Ed Vatza
10-05-2008, 02:03 PM
Very nice capture Petros. I like the sharpness of the flower and the Hummingbird Moth looks good as well. The motion captured in the wings is a nice touch as well. Oh and the out of focus flowers in the background are pretty cool as well.
Joanna Trescott
10-05-2008, 02:59 PM
Petros: Really nice photograph. I agree with Jules. I think a vertical crop would really be strong. I find the OOF pink and orange colors detract from the beautiful flower and hummingbird moth. I have seen this creature in Colorado, too.
Robert O'Toole
10-05-2008, 08:19 PM
Petros,

Excellent first macro post, congrats!
The action, positioning and the eye contact are all strong on this image, just great. I like the blurred wings also. Normally for a small insect in flight you would need 1/1250-1/2000th of a sec to freeze the insect sharply or of course use flash. So here without flash and 1/200 the insect obviously was hovering so superb work on this one. This is not easy at all, highly difficult in fact!

Keep them coming!

Robert
Anita Rakestraw
10-11-2008, 02:54 AM
Petros, I agree that this is really a nice first macro post! I too think maybe a vertical crop would work well here - and eliminate the color splashes on the sides, which altho pretty, distract me a bit. Nice image!