Dragonfly Amidst Star Thistle

[Chris Hansen]

Early in the morning is a great time to find dragonflies like this one. They are still too cold to fly and the morning light is soft. My self critique is that it is a bit centered and the star thistle on the right pulls your eye from the subject. Also the spectral highlights on the wing are a little strong. It will be good for me to hear what others have to say.

Canon 10D
Promaster 100mm Macro
Bogen 3021 Tripod w heavy duty 3055 ballhead
ISO 100
Manual mode
f8 @ 1/60th sec.

God's light to all,

Chris

[Julie Kenward]

I think despite all you said it is a really nice image. It does feel like it needs a little more room and I do wish that one flower were more to the side than directly OVER the wing. You did a great job on DOF though and I even like the highlights on the wings. Cool photo!

[Chris Starbuck]

Chris,
You've already identified the things that could have been a little better. The only one that bothers me is the bright flower at right. Apart from that, this is a very nice dragon image. The basic composition, straight on from above the dfly, wings essentially horizontal, centered left-right, is pretty classic. I see a lot of published (calendars, books, web) professional dfly images that use this composition. It can be a bit stronger if the dfly isn't quite centered vertically, but really to do that you have to back off a bit and leave the dfly a bit smaller in the frame; a matter of taste, and what you're trying to show. A little bit of diagonal to the wings can also be stronger, but ... taste.

A question about the specular highlights: Were you using flash, or were these just from sunlight? Either way, a diffuser would soften them a bit, if you prefer an image without strong highlights. This is another thing I think is a matter of taste, and again, I see a lot of published pro dfly images with the same sort of specular highlights.

Thinking a little more about the bright yellow flower, I tried a couple things in PS to see if I could make it less distracting, without removing it altogether. A simple duplicate layer set to multiply, and masked to affect only the FG flower and lighter areas of the BG didn't seem to work for me; it darkened those areas but also increased the saturation, which left them just as distracting. I think some direct tweaking of saturation and lightness (by channel) followed by selective weak burning actually reduces the distraction. [I reduced yellow sat & lightness by 7 & 10 respectively, and increased sat by 10 in the red, blue, & cyan channels.] What do you think?

Chris

[Chris Hansen]

I appreciate the feedback. Julie I agree it needs a touch more room as I look at it. Chris on my old iMac monitor I can't even see a difference. So I need to take a look at it on a better computer. With regard to the light source I was using a gold metallic reflector to fill in the shadows so it wouldn't appear as a silhouette.
Thanks for your input and God bless,

Chris

[Mike Moats]

Hey Chris, Nice sharp details on the D-fly, and a tad to much details in the BG for my taste. The D-fly is on a nice flat plane and with the front of your lens at the same plane you may have been able to maintain the details and have a little less BG by shooting at f.5.6 instead of the f/8

[Robert O'Toole]

Chris,

Looks like a Male Window Skimmer in very good shape!

I agree with Mike's recommendations about the BG.

Robert

[Robert O'Toole]

Chris,
You've already identified the things that could have been a little better. The only one that bothers me is the bright flower at right. Apart from that, this is a very nice dragon image. The basic composition, straight on from above the dfly, wings essentially horizontal, centered left-right, is pretty classic. I see a lot of published (calendars, books, web) professional dfly images that use this composition. It can be a bit stronger if the dfly isn't quite centered vertically, but really to do that you have to back off a bit and leave the dfly a bit smaller in the frame; a matter of taste, and what you're trying to show. A little bit of diagonal to the wings can also be stronger, but ... taste.

A question about the specular highlights: Were you using flash, or were these just from sunlight? Either way, a diffuser would soften them a bit, if you prefer an image without strong highlights. This is another thing I think is a matter of taste, and again, I see a lot of published pro dfly images with the same sort of specular highlights.

Thinking a little more about the bright yellow flower, I tried a couple things in PS to see if I could make it less distracting, without removing it altogether. A simple duplicate layer set to multiply, and masked to affect only the FG flower and lighter areas of the BG didn't seem to work for me; it darkened those areas but also increased the saturation, which left them just as distracting. I think some direct tweaking of saturation and lightness (by channel) followed by selective weak burning actually reduces the distraction. [I reduced yellow sat & lightness by 7 & 10 respectively, and increased sat by 10 in the red, blue, & cyan channels.] What do you think?

Chris

Wow that is a lot of work Chris. One side effect to your darkening is increased noise creating more problems.

I think the only viable solution if so inclined would be to just remove the flower head. Would take a few minutes and would not show any traces or side effects.

Robert